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This document was generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter program

Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

By Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley

Scanned by BW-SciFi

Scan date: July, 6th, 2002

BRING ME THE HEAD OF PRINCE CHARMING

A Bantam Book / December 1991

Published simultaneously in hardcover and trade paperback

All rights reserved.

Copyright©1991 by the Amber Corporation and Robert Sheckley.

Cover art copyright©1991 by Don Maitz

Interior art copyright©by Larry Elmore.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the publisher.

For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zelazny, Roger.

Bring me the head of prince charming / Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley.
p. cm.

ISBN 0-553-07678-7 (bc) -ISBN 0-553-35448-5 (tp)

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I. Sheckley, Robert, 1928- . II. Title.

PS3569.H392B7 1991

813'.54-dc20 91-18153

CIP

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam

Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the

words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.Marca Regis-

trada.Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FFG 0987654321

Chapter 1

The bastards were shirking again. And Azzie had just gotten comfortable. He
had found a place just the right distance between the fiery hole in the
mid-dle of the Pit and the hoarfrost-covered iron walls which encircled it.

The walls were kept close to absolute zero by the devil's own
air-conditioning system. The central Pit was hot enough to strip atoms of
their electrons, and there were occasional gusts that could melt a proton.

Not that that much heat or cold was needed. It was over-kill; overharass,
actually. Humans, even when dead and cast into the Pit, have very narrow
ranges (speaking on a cosmic scale) of tolerance. Once past the comfort zone
in either di-rection, humans soon lost the ability to discriminate bad from
worse. What good was it subjecting a poor wretch to a million degrees Celsius
if it felt the same as a mere five hundred de-grees? The extremes only
tormented the demons and other supernatural creatures who tended the damned.
Supernatural creatures have a far wider range of sensation than humans; mostly
to their discomfort, but sometimes to their exceeding pleasure. But it is not
seemly to talk about pleasure in the Pit.

Hell has more than one Pit, of course. Millions upon mil-lions of people are
dead. More are dying every day. Most of them spend at least some time in the
Pit. Obviously, there have to be arrangements to accommodate them all.

The Pit Azzie served in was called North Discomfort 405. It was one of the

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oldest, having been put into service in Bab-ylonian times, when people really
knew how to sin. It still bore rusty bas-reliefs of winged lions on the walls
and was listed in the Hell Register of Places of Historical Distinction. But
Azzie cared nothing for serving in a well-known Pit. All he wanted was to get
out.

Like all Pits, North Discomfort 405 consisted of a circle of iron walls
enclosing an enormous garbage pit, in the center of which was a hole from
which poured exceeding hot fire. Hot coals and burning lava spat from the
hole. The glare was un-remitting. Only full-fledged demons like Azzie were
permitted to wear sunglasses.

And the torments of the damned were accompanied and amplified by music of a
sort. Menial imps had scraped clear a semicircle in the midst of the dense,
matted, moldy, and rotten debris. The orchestra was seated in this semicircle
on orange crates. It was composed of inept musicians who had died in the act
of performing. Here in Hell they were forced to play the works of the worst
composers ever known. Their names are not remembered on Earth, but in Hell,
where their compositions are played without stop, and even broadcast on the
Kazum circuit, they are famous.

The imps worked away, turning and adjusting the damned on their griddles. The
imps, like the ghouls, liked their people well rotted, and served up marinated
in an admixture of vinegar, garlic, anchovy, and maggoty sausage.

What had pulled Azzie from his repose was that in the sector directly ahead
of him, the dead were stacked only about eight or ten high. Azzie gave up his
comfortable (relatively) berth and scrambled down through rotting eggshells
and squashy entrails and chicken heads to the level ground where he could
trample comfortably over the bodies.

"When I said stack 'em high," he told the imps, "I meant a whole lot higher
than that."

"But they topple over when we try to stack them any higher!" said the head
imp.

"Then get some bracing material to hold them in! I want those piles at least
twenty bodies high!"

"Difficult, sir."

Azzie stared. Dared an imp talk back to him? "Do it or join them," he said.

"Yes, sir! Bracing material going right up, sir!" The imp ran off, shouting
orders to his work crew.

It had started out as another typical day in one of the Pits of Hell. But it
was to change dramatically, unexpectedly, in another moment. So it is with
change! We go about our ac-customed ways with lowered head and hangdog eye,
tired of our accustomed round, sure it will go on forever. Why should it
change when there is no change in sight, no letter, no Federal Express, not
even a telephone call presaging a great event? So you despair, never realizing
that your messenger has already been dispatched, and that hopes are sometimes
realized, even in Hell. Indeed, some would say, hopes are especially realized
in Hell, since hope itself is counted by some as one of the diabolic torments.
But this may be an exaggeration of the churchmen who scribble about such
things.

Azzie saw that the imps were beginning to perform sat-isfactorily. He only

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had another two hundred hours to work on his shift (days in the Pit are long)
until he could get his three hours' sleep before beginning again. He was just
about to return to that comfortable - relatively comfortable - spot he had
just abandoned when a messenger came running up.

"Are you the demon in charge of this Pit?"

The questioner was a violet-winged Efreet, one of the old Baghdad crowd, now
mainly working courier service since the Evil Powers of the Upper Council
liked their gaily colored turbans.

"I am Azzie Elbub," our demon said. "And yes, I am in charge of this
particular subpit."

"Then you're the one I'm looking for." The Efreet handed Azzie an asbestos
document inscribed in letters of fire. Azzie drew on his gloves before
handling it. Such documents were used only by the High Council of Infernal
Justice.

He read, "Know all demons by these presentiments that an Injustice has been
done; namely, a human has been brought to the Pit before his time. The forces
of Light have already made remonstrations on his behalf, since, if he were to
live out his allotted days, he would still have time to repent. The betting
against this taking place is on the order of two thousand to one, but the
chance exists, albeit but mathematically. You are there-fore requested and
ordered to take this man out of the Pit, sponge him off, and restore him to
his wife and family on Earth, and there remain with him until he has adjusted
sufficiently to get his own living, since otherwise we are responsible for his
upkeep. After that, you will be released to normal demonic duties on Earth.
Sincerely, Asmodeus, Head of North Pit Sec-tion of Hell. P.S. The man answers
to the name of Thomas Scrivener."

Azzie was so elated that he embraced the Efreet, who stepped hastily back,
adjusting his turban and saying, "Take it easy, buddy."

"I was just excited," Azzie said. "I'm going to get out of this place at
last! I'm going back to Earth!"

"A disappointing place," the Efreet said. "But to each his, her, or its own."

Azzie hurried off to find Thomas Scrivener.

He located the man at last in row 1002WW. The Pits of Hell are laid out like
amphitheaters. Every location can be traced. A master plan exists. In
practice, however, what with the imps carelessly throwing people onto piles
and the piles falling over onto other piles, people's locations in the Pits
are known only approximately.

"Is there a Thomas Scrivener here?" Azzie asked.

The mound of sinners at location 1002WW turned away from their discussion and
looked at him, those whose heads were faced in the right direction. Instead of
repenting their sins, they considered Pit time a social occasion, a chance to
get to know neighbors, exchange opinions, have a few laughs. Thus do the dead
continue to deceive themselves, just as in life.

"Scrivener, Scrivener," an old man in a middle position said. He turned his
head toward his armpit with difficulty. "Sure, he's here. Any of you fellows

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know where Scrivener is?"

The request was carried up and down the great mound.

Men turned from their preoccupation with sports (there are plenty of sports
in Hell, but the home team always loses-until you bet against them) to say,
"Scrivener, Scrivener, sort of a tall skinny loony fellow with a cast in one
eye?"

"I don't know what he looks like," Azzie said. "I assumed he answered to his
name."

The mound of people mumbled and coughed and discussed it among them, as
humans, living or dead, are wont to do about anything. And if Azzie had not
had a demon's preternatural hearing, he would not have heard the faint squeak
that came from somewhere deep in the pile.

"Hi there! Scrivener here! Was somebody asking for me?"

Azzie directed his imps to pull Scrivener out of the pile, but gently,
without tearing off any of his appendages. They could be replaced, of course,
but the procedure was painful and apt to leave a psychic scar. Azzie knew he
was supposed to bring the man back to Earth intact so that Scrivener wouldn't
create trouble for the Dark Forces for reaping him prematurely.

Soon enough Scrivener scrambled out of the pile, brushing himself off. He was
a small, balding, jaunty little man.

"I'm Scrivener!" he cried. "You found out it was a mistake, eh? I told them I
wasn't dead when they first brought me here. That Grim Reaper of yours doesn't
do much listening, does he? Just keeps grinning that great big idiotic grin.
Plucked me away just like that. I've a good mind to complain to someone in
authority."

"Listen to me," Azzie said. "You're lucky the mistake was found at all. If
you begin litigation, they'll put you in a holding tank until your case can be
heard. That could take a century or two. Do you know what our holding tanks
are like?"

Scrivener shook his head, wide-eyed.

"They're so bad," Azzie said, "that they even contravene infernal law."

Scrivener seemed impressed. "I guess I'm lucky to be get-ting out at all.
Thanks for the tip. Are you a lawyer?"

"Not by training," Azzie said. "But all of us down here have a little lawyer
in us. Come on, let's get you back home."

"I've a feeling I have a few problems at home," Scrivener said hesitantly.

"That's what life is," Azzie continued. "Problems. Be glad you have problems
to worry about. When you come down here to stay, you'll have nothing to worry
about. Whatever's hap-pening to you just goes on and on."

"I won't be back," Scrivener said.

Azzie wanted to ask him if he wanted to bet on it, but decided that it
wouldn't be appropriate under the circum-stances.

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"We'll have to wipe your memory of this experience," he told Scrivener. 'You
understand we can't have you fellows going back to Earth and telling a lot of
stories."

"Fine with me," Scrivener said. "Nothing here I want to remember, anyhow.
Although earlier, in Purgatory, I met this blond succubus - "

"Save it," Azzie growled, grabbing Scrivener by the arm and steering him to
the gate in the wall that leads to other parts of Hell and, eventually, to
everywhere else and vice versa.

Chapter 2

Azzie and Scrivener proceeded through the iron gate in the iron wall and up
the spiraling road that leads through the outer suburbs of Purgatory, a region
com-posed of great crosshatched depths and startling heights exact-ly as
Fuseli drew it. They trudged along, demon and man, and the way was easy, for
easy are the roads of Hell, but it was also boring, because Hell is the state
of not being amused.

And after a while Scrivener said, "Is it much farther?"

"I'm not sure," Azzie confessed. "I'm new in this sector. In fact, I
shouldn't be here at all."

"Just like me," Scrivener said. "Just because I fall into a corpselike coma
from time to time is no reason for your Grim Reaper fellow to grab me up
without making proper tests. It was slipshod, I tell you. Why shouldn't you be
here?"

"I was intended for better things," Azzie said. "I got good grades in
Thaumaturgy College. Finished in the top three in my class."

He failed to tell Scrivener that all of his class except three had wiped out
when a sudden infestation of good blew in from the south, freak metaphysical
weather that killed all but Azzie and two others, who seemed to have a natural
immunity against good halations. And then there had been the poker game.

"So why are you here?" Scrivener asked.

"I'm working off a gambling debt," Azzie said. "I couldn't pay up, so I had
to serve time." He hesitated, then said, "I like to gamble."

"Me too," Scrivener said, with what sounded like an air of regret.

They walked for a while in silence. Then Scrivener said, "What's going to
happen to me now?"

"We're going to insert you back into your body."

"Will I be all right? Some people wake up from the dead and are all funny, so
I've heard."

"I'll be around to look out for you. I'll stay until I'm sure you're all
right."

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"That's good to hear," Scrivener said. He walked for a while in silence, then
said, "But of course, when I wake up I won't know you're there, will I?"

"Of course not."

"Then I won't be reassured."

Azzie said testily, "When you're alive, nothing can reassure you. I'm just
telling you this now. It's only when you're dead you can appreciate it."

They walked on. After a ways more, Scrivener said, "You know, I can't
remember a thing about my life back on Earth."

"Don't worry, it'll all come back to you."

"I think I was married, though."

"Fine."

"But I'm not sure."

"It'll all come back to you as soon as you are back in your body."

"What if it doesn't? What if I've got amnesia?"

"You'll be fine," Azzie said.

"Do you swear that on your honor as a demon?"

"Certainly," Azzie said, lying with ease. He had taken a special course in
forswearing and had proven adept at it.

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

"Hey, trust me," Azzie said, using the master mantra that makes docile even
the most suspicious and bellicose.

"You can understand why I'd be a little nervous," Scriv-ener said. "Being
born again, I mean."

"Nothing to be ashamed of," Azzie said. "Here we are.

"Thank Satan," he added under his breath. Talking long with humans made him
nervous. They wentaround subjects so! The Demon Fathers had offered a survey
course in Human Tergiversation at Demon U, but it was an elective and he
hadn't bothered to take it. False Dialectic had seemed more interesting at the
time.

Up ahead he saw the familiar scarlet and chartreuse stripes of the North Pit
ambulance. The ambulance stopped a few yards away and a medical demon got out.
He was an obelisk-eyed pig-snouted fellow and very different from Azzie, who
was a fox-faced demon with red hair, pointed ears, and startling blue eyes,
accounted quite handsome by those who have a taste for demons.

"Is this the fellow?"

"This is him," Azzie said.

"Before you do anything," Scrivener said, "I just want to know - "

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The pig-snouted medical demon reached out and touched a spot on Scrivener's
forehead. Scrivener stopped talking and his eyes went unfocused.

"What did you do?" Azzie asked.

"Put him on idle," the medical demon said. "Now it's time to ship him."

Azzie hoped Scrivener would be all right: it's never good news when a demon
messes with your head.

"How do you know where to send him?" Azzie asked.

The medical demon opened Scrivener's shirt and showed Azzie the name and
address tattooed on his chest in purple ink.

"It's the devil's identification mark," the medical demon said.

"You'll take that off before you send him back?"

"Don't worry, he can't see it. That's forus to read. You going along with
him?"

"I'll get there on my own," Azzie said. "Let me just see that address again.
Okay, I got it.

"See you later, Tom," he said to the blank-eyed man.

Chapter 3

And so Thomas Scrivener was returned to his home. Luckily the medical demon
had been able to get him back before irreparable damage had been done to his
body. The doctor who had bought it had been about to start an incision in the
neck to trace out the arterial system for his students. Before he could begin,
Scrivener opened his eyes. "Good morning, Dr. Moreau," he said, and then
fainted.

Moreau proclaimed him alive and demanded a refund from his widow.

She paid it grudgingly. Her marriage to Scrivener hadn't been particularly
successful.

Azzie had traveled to Earth by his own means, not wanting to go with
Scrivener in the Vehicle of the Undead, whose rotting smells were a trial even
for supernatural beings. He arrived just after Scrivener's resuscitation. No
one could see him since he wore the Amulet of Invisibility.

Invisibly, except to those with the second sight, Azzie followed the
procession that carried Scrivener back to his home. The good people of the
village, rustics all, proclaimed it a mir-acle. But Scrivener's wife, Milaud,
kept on muttering, "I knew he was faking it, the wretch!"

Shielded by his invisibility, Azzie drifted around Scrivener's house, where
he would live until Scrivener was past the claims period. Probably a matter of
a few days. It was a fair-sized house, several rooms on each floor, and a nice
dank base-ment.

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Azzie took up his abode in the basement. It was just the sort of a place for
a demon. He had brought along several scrolls to read and a sack of rotted
cats' heads for snacks. He was looking forward to a quiet time. But no sooner
had he settled in than the interruptions began.

First it was Scrivener's wife, a tall wench with coarse brown hair, wide
shoulders, and a big bottom, coming down to the cellar for provisions. Then it
was the oldest son, Hans, a weedy lout who looked just like his father,
searching for the honey pot. Then Lotte the maidservant, down to pick out some
potatoes from last year's harvest.

What with one thing and another, Azzie got little rest. In the morning he
looked in on Scrivener. The resuscitated man seemed to be on the mend. He was
sitting up and taking herb tea, arguing with his wife and scolding the
children. One more day, Azzie decided, and he'd be all right and it would be
time to move on to more interesting matters.

The two dogs of the household knew he was there, and slunk away whenever he
came by. That was to be expected. But what happened next was not in his plans.

That night he went to sleep in the moldy part of the cellar where some
turnips had rotted and he'd made a noisome little nest for himself. But he
awoke abruptly when he sensed the presence of light. It was a candle's glow.
Someone was standing there looking at him. A child. How insufferable! Azzie
tried to bound to his feet and fell back. Someone had tied a piece of string
around his ankle!

Sheer reaction made him rear up. A child. A little fat-faced flaxen-haired
girl of seven or so. Somehow she must be able to see him: in fact, she had
trapped him.

Azzie swelled himself up to his full height, deciding he'd better impress
this child at once. He tried to loom menacingly over her, but the strangely
glowing string, one end of which she had tied to a beam, pulled him up short
and he fell again. The little girl laughed and Azzie shuddered: nothing sets a
demon's teeth on edge quite so much as innocent young laughter.

"Hi, little girl," he said. "Can you see me?"

"Yes, I can," she said. "You look like a nasty old fox!"

Azzie looked at the tiny dial set in his Amulet of Invisibility. As he had
feared, it showed that the power was down close to zero. Those fools at
Supply! But of course he should have checked it himself.

He seemed in a bit of a fix. But nothing he couldn't talk his way out of.

"Anice fox, though, eh, snubkin?" Azzie said, using a term of endearment
common among demon parents. "How nice to see you! Please undo this bit of
string and I'll give you a whole bag of sweets."

"I don't like you," the child said. "You're bad. I'm going to keep you tied
up and call the priest."

She stared at him accusingly. Azzie could see he was going to have to employ
some cunning to get out of this one.

"Tell me, little girl," he said, "where did you come by this bit of string? "

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"I found it in one of the storerooms of the church," she told him. "It was on
a table with a lot of bits of bone."

Relics of the holy saints! That meant that the string had to be a
spirit-catcher! The best spirit-catchers were made from the rope that girdled
the robes of saints. It was going to be difficult getting out of it.

"Little girl, I'm just here to look after your father. He hasn't been well,
you know, what with dying and coming back to life and all. Now be a dear and
undo the cord, that's a sweet good girl."

"No," the little girl said, in that adamantine way little girls have, and
some big ones, too.

"Well, curse and blast," Azzie said. He struggled but couldn't get his foot
out of the spirit-catcher, which had the annoying property of tightening each
time he tried to loosen it. "Come on, little girl, fun's fun but now it's time
to let me go."

"Don't call me 'little girl,' " the little girl said. "My name is Brigitte,
and I know all about you and your kind. The priest told us. You are an evil
spirit, aren't you?"

"Not at all," said Azzie. "I am actually agood spirit, or at least aneutral
spirit. I was sent here to make sure your father gets well. I must look after
him now, then go away and help others."

"Oh, I see," said Brigitte. She thought for a while. "You look awfully like a
demon."

"Looks can be deceiving," Azzie said. "Let me go! I must see to your father!"

"What'll you give me?" Brigitte asked.

"Toys," Azzie said. "More than you've ever seen before."

"Good," the little girl said. "I need new clothes, too."

"I'll give you a new wardrobe. Now let me go!"

Brigitte came close and picked at the knot with a grubby forefinger. Then she
stopped. "If I let you go, will you come back and play with me whenever I call
for you?"

"No, that's going too far. I have other things to do. I can't be at the beck
and call of a little village girl with a dirty face."

"Well then, promise you'll grant me three wishes whenever I ask for them."

Azzie hesitated. Granting wishes could get you into trou-ble. A demon's
promise in this regard had to be kept. But granting human wishes could take
you into some difficulties. Humans were so extravagant!

"I'll grant one wish," he said. "As long as it's reasonable."

"Well, all right," Brigitte said. "But not too reasonable, all right?"

"All right! Untie me!"

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Brigitte did so. Azzie rubbed his ankle, then searching through his pouch,
found a spare charge for his Amulet of Invisibility. He plugged it in and
vanished.

"Don't forget, you promised!" she cried.

Azzie knew he couldn't forget even if he wanted to. Prom-ises made by
supernatural creatures to humans are registered with the Office of
Equilibrium, operating under the rule of Ananke. If a demon tried to forget a
promise, the forces of Necessity quickly and painfully reminded him.

Scrivener was all right, eating a bowl of cereal, giving orders to his hired
hands and to his wife. Azzie exited. It was time to get on with his life.

Chapter 4

It was a pleasure for Azzie to be free and able to roam the green earth once
again. He had really hated his stay in the Pit, for its simple-minded
repetitiousness as much as anything else-you can get very tired of
the dreary daily round of roasting sinners. Azzie was an energetic demon,
enterprising, forward-looking. He was an agent of evil, and despite a certain
air of frivolousness, he took his hellish duties seriously.

After leaving Scrivener's village, the first thing he wanted to do was orient
himself. This region was not familiar to him. Azzie had visited Earth last
during Imperial Roman times and had even been present at one of Caligula's
notable feasts. Now, flying low over the land that had been called Gaul, he
was guarded from mishap by his Amulet of Invisibility. The Amulet also
conferred a degree of impalpability upon its wearer, which was just as well
when he passed through a large flock of trum-peter swans. As he flew Azzie
noted the forest stretching out on all sides. The village had been but a patch
in that great forest that covered most of Europe and stretched from Scythia to
Spain. Azzie found a muddy track running through it and fol-lowed it at an
altitude of about five hundred feet. The track stretched on and on, at last
opening out into a proper paved Roman road. He accompanied a group of horsemen
down the road and into a city of fair size. Later, he learned this was Troyes,
a part of the kingdom of the Franks, who were large barbarians with iron
swords who had taken over all of Gaul and much more since the decline of Roman
power.

Azzie flew low and slow over the city, noting the many small houses and,
among them, the palaces of lords and high churchmen. On the outskirts of the
town a fair was being held. He flew above its tents and pennants, attracted to
its cheerful bustle. He decided to pay it a visit.

He came to Earth and changed into one of his standard disguises: a kindly,
portly man, balding, and with a twinkling eye. His toga, which came with the
disguise, looked out of place, so he purchased a cloak of homespun at a booth
and looked more or less like everyone else.

He strolled along, looking around, still slightly disoriented. There were
several permanent structures and a field scattered with tents. All sorts of
things were sold here-weapons, cloth-ing, foodstuffs, livestock, tools,
spices.

"Hi there! You, sir!"

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Azzie turned. Yes, the old crone was beckoning to him. She sat in front of a
small black tent, cabalistic figures painted on its sides in gold. She was
dark-skinned, and appeared to be an Arab or a Gypsy.

"You called me?"

"I did, sir," she said, in a villainous North African accent. "Come inside."

A human might have been more cautious, because you can never tell what might
happen inside a black tent with cabalistic figures. But for Azzie that tent
was the first familiar thing he had seen in a long time. There are whole
tribes of demons who live in black tents and wander up and down the waste
places of Limbo, and Azzie, although Canaanite on his father's side, was
related to some of the wandering Bedouin demons.

Inside, the tent was lined with richly figured rugs. There were oil lamps of
finely wrought pewter on the wall, and em-broidered cushions lay all over. At
the far end was a low altar with a table for offerings. Behind it, looming
high, was a heroic statue in the Grecian manner, of a handsome young man with
a wreath of laurel in his hair. Azzie recognized the features.

"So Hermes is here," Azzie said.

"I am his priestess," said the crone.

"I was under the impression," Azzie said, "that we were in a Christian
country and that worship of the old gods is strictly forbidden."

"What you say is true," the crone said. "The old gods are dead, but not
really dead because they have returned to life in new forms. Hermes, for
example, has changed into Hermes Trismegistus, patron saint of alchemists. His
worship is not approved, but neither is it forbidden."

"I'm happy to see that," Azzie said. "But why have you called me here?"

"You are a demon, sir?" the crone inquired.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"There is something lordly and sinister in your mien," the crone said, "an
air of brooding, implacable evil that would set you apart from others no
matter how large the crowd."

Azzie knew that Gypsies were capable of subtle percep-tions which they then
phrased to flatter their clients. Never-theless, he reached into his pouch,
found a gold denier, and gave it to her.

"Take that for your cunning tongue. Now, what do you want of me?"

"My master wants to have a word with you."

"Well, good," Azzie said. It had been a long time since he had had a chat
with one of the old gods. "Where is he?"

The crone knelt down at the altar and began mumbling. In a moment the white
marble was suffused with a rosy glow. The statue came to life, stretched,
stepped down from its ped-estal, and sat beside Azzie. To the old woman Hermes
said, "Go find us something to drink."

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When she had left, he said, "So, Azzie, it's been a long time."

"Quite long," Azzie said. "It's good to see you again, Hermes. I wasn't on
Earth when Christianity defeated pagan-ism- other commitments, you know-but I
do want to offer my condolences."

"Thank you," Hermes said, "but actually we lost nothing. We're all at work,
all the gods. We move with the times, and we sometimes hold honored positions
in both camps - saint or demon. Does wonders for one's perspective. There's
much to be said for a kind of intermediate status."

"I'm glad to hear it," Azziesaid. "There's something sad about the thought of
an out-of-work god."

"Never worry about us. I had my servant Aissa call you, Azzie, because she
saidyoulooked lost. I thought I could help."

"That is good of you," Azzie said. "Perhaps you could just fill me in on
what's been going on since Caligula."

"Well, in brief, the Roman thing collapsed under barbarian invasions and lead
poisoning. The barbarians are all about now. They call themselves Franks and
Saxons and Visigoths. They have formed an empire which they call the Holy
Roman Em-pire."

"Holy?" Azzie asked.

"That's what they call it. I don't know why."

"But how did the real Roman empire fall?"

"You can look it up in any history," Hermes said. "Just take my word; it
fell, and that was the end of the Classical Age. The period we are now in is
called - or will be, shortly after it's over-the Middle Ages. You just missed
the Dark Ages. We had some fun then, I promise you! But this time is good,
too."

"What year is it?" Azzie asked.

"The year one thousand," Hermes said.

"The Millennium!"

"Yes."

"Then it's almost time for the contest."

"That is correct, Azzie. It is the time when the forces of Light and the
forces of Darkness hold their great contest to see who shall dictate the
essence of human destiny for the next thousand years, and whether it shall be
for good or for evil. What are you going to do about it?"

"Me?" Azzie said. "What canI do?"

"You can enter the contest."

Azzie shook his head. "The representative of Evil is chosen at the Grand
Council by the High Evil Powers. They always play favorites, giving the making
of the contest to one of their friends. I wouldn't stand a chance."

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"That is how it was in the old days," Hermes said. "But I've heard that Hell
is reforming itself. They are being sorely pressed by the Powers of Light.
Nepotism, excellent though it is, is no longer sufficient to carry their point
of view. Now, as I understand it, the selecting of the contestant must be
awarded on merit.'

"Merit! What a novel concept! But there's still nothing I can do."

"Don't be a defeatist like so many other young demons," Hermes said sternly.
"So many of them are lazy, content just to lie around, take drugs, swap tales,
and take the easy way through eternity. You are not like that, Azzie. You're
clever, and you have principles, initiative. Do something. You may actually
have a chance."

"But I don't know what to do," Azzie said. "And even if I did, I have no
money to carry it out with."

"You paid the old woman," Hermes pointed out.

"That was fairy gold. It vanishes after a day or two. If I want to make an
entry in the contest, it calls for real money."

"I know where some is," Hermes said.

"Where? How many dragons do I have to slay to get it?"

"No dragons at all. You merely have to best the other players in the
Founder's Day Poker Game."

"Poker!" Azzie breathed. "My passion! Where's the game?"

"It is taking place three days hence in a graveyard in Rome. But you must
play better this time than last, else you'll be returned to the Pit for a few
hundred more years.

"In fact," Hermes said, "you need what gamblers of a later day will call an
edge."

"An edge? What is that?"

"Any device that helps you win."

"There are watchers at these games to prevent cheating."

"True enough. But there's no law, heavenly or infernal, against a good-luck
charm."

"But they're rare indeed! If only I had one!"

"I can tell you where to get one. But you will have to inconvenience yourself
to get it."

"Tell me, then, Hermes!"

"In my nocturnal wanderings around the city of Troyes and its environs,"
Hermes said, "I have noticed a place at the edge of the woods to the west
where a small orange flower grows. The people hereabouts know it not, but it
is Speculum, which grows only in the presence of felixite."

"There's felixite around here?" Azzie said, marveling greatly.

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"You must find that out for yourself," Hermes said. "But the indications are
good."

Chapter 5

Azzie thanked Hermes and took his leave. He walked through a low field,
toward the woods that sur-rounded the city. He found the rare flower, which
was low and inconspicuous. Azzie sniffed it (the odor of the Speculum is
delicious) and then bent low and put his ear to the ground. His
preternaturally alert sense of hearing brought to his senses the presence of
something belowground, something 'that moved and thumped, moved and thumped.
It was, of course, the characteristic sound a dwarf makes as he cuts a tunnel
with his pick and shovel. The dwarves are well aware that the sound of their
digging gives them away, but what can they do; a dwarf needs to dig to feel
alive.

Azzie stamped his foot and sank into the earth. This is a talent that most
European and Arabian demons have. Living in the earth is as natural for them
as living on the earth is for men. The demons experience earth as something
much like water, through which they can swim, though they much prefer to walk
in tunnels.

It was cool underground. The lack of light did not prevent Azzie from seeing
around him very nicely, in a dim infrared sort of way. And it is rather
pleasant underground. There are moles and shrews near the surface, and other
creatures glide along the differing densities of the soil.

At last Azzie came out in a large underground cavern. Phosphorescent rocks
gave off a dim glow, and he could see, at the far end of the cavern, a
solitary dwarf of the north European variety, dressed in a well-made green and
red mole-skin suit, with tiny jackboots of gecko hide and a little mouse-skin
cap on his head.

"Greetings, dwarf,"Azzie said, adjusting his height up-ward as far as the
rocky ceiling allowed so that he could loom over the dwarf impressively.

"Hail, demon," the dwarf said, sounding not too pleased at stumbling over
one. "Out for a stroll, are you?"

"You could say so," Azzie said. "And what about you?"

"Just passing through these parts," the dwarf said. "On my way to a reunion
in Antibes."

"Is that a fact?" Azzie asked.

"Yes, it is."

"Then why were you standing here digging?"

"Me? Digging? Not really."

"Then what were you doing with that pick in your hand? "

The dwarf looked down and seemed surprised to find the pick there. "I was

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just tidying up." He tried to rake a few rocks together with the pick, but of
course, since it was never intended for that purpose, it didn't do a good job.

"Tidying up the earth?" Azzie said. "What'dye take me for, a moron? Who are
you, anyhow?"

"I am Rognir, a member of the Rolfing Dwarveria from Uppsala. Tidying up the
earth may seem absurd to you, but it comes naturally to dwarves, who like
everything to remain the same."

"Frankly," Azzie said, "what you are saying makes no sense to me at all."

"That's because I'm nervous," Rognir said. "As a rule I talk quite sensibly."

"Then do so now," Azzie said. "Relax, I mean you no mischief."

The dwarf nodded but looked unconvinced. He didn't trust demons, and you
couldn't really blame him. There are many rivalries in the spirit kingdom
which are unknown to man, since a Homer or a Virgil wasn't around when
something was going on. The dwarves and the demons had been having quite a
tense time of it recently, due to territorial disputes. Demons have always had
a claim on the underground, despite their distant birth as fallen creatures of
the Light. They love the underground ways of Earth, the deep caverns, bogs,
and sinkholes, caves and declivities, the passageways that present vistas of
beautiful strangeness to their poetic but gloomy imaginations. The dwarves
had their own claim on the underworld, considered themselves children of it,
born spontaneously out of the chaotic fiery writhings of the deepermost
regions of primal flame. They were romanticizing, of course; the true origin
of the dwarves is interesting, but there is no time to go into it here. What
is important is the power of imagination, to take an idea and cling to it
stubbornly. Thus the dwarves, and their insistence on being free to wander the
underground ways as they pleased, without stint or restraint. This wasn't to
the demons' way of thinking, however. They preferred territories. Demons like
to stomp along alone, and other creatures tend to get out of their way. Not so
the dwarves, who trooped along in their bands, white whiskers flowing, pickax
and spade always ready, pounding and chanting (for they are great chanters),
often passing directly through a demon convocation: for demons are always
holding meetings on crucial points of doctrine, though their discussions are
rarely noted by those who really dispose the power. Be this as it may, they
hate being disturbed, and the dwarves had an uncanny power of choosing just
the wrong place and time to dig to disturb a demon sitting deep in thought,
motionless on a block of basalt, hands to his ears, as we see in some of the
family portraits done in stone on the turrets of Notre Dame. The demons feel
the dwarves are crowding them. Wars have been started on lesser issues.

"I believe," Azzie said, "our tribes are currently at a state of peace. In
any event, I have come only for something which will not even interest you,
since it is not a precious gem."

"What exactly are you looking for?" Rognir asked.

"Felixite," Azzie said.

In those days, charms and talismans still had great power in the world. And
there were many of them about, though the dwarves hid them in secret places,
to keep them from the dragons, without much luck, since dragons knew that
where you find dwarves, you find gold. Dwarves and dragons go together like
lox and bagels, herring and sour cream, good and bad, memory and regret. The
dwarves worked hard to extract felixite luck stones from the depths of the
earth. Felixite is found only in small quantities, in beds of Neptunic basalt,

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the very oldest and hardest kind.

This stone of good omen, felixite, was much in use back when everything was
happier, better, dearer, truer, the Golden Age, which ended just before true
humans came on the scene. Some say that the deposits were laid down by the
ancient gods who ruled the earth in the distant long-ago time before things
had names. Even then felixite was the rarest mineral in the world. A tiny
amount of it could transmit its own inherent joyous and buoyant karma to the
holder thereof, thus predis-posing a favorable outcome to whatever enterprise
he was en-gaged in. That was why men killed for it.

One thing is sure. If you want a magic good-luck charm, you must either steal
one (which is difficult, since a real good-luck charm preserves itself for its
owner, and thus tends to be more than a little theft-resistant), or you must
find a lode of felixite in the bowels of the earth and fashion one for
yourself. You might think that all the natural felixite would be gone by now,
since dwarves have been looking for it (among other things) under the earth
for as long as mankind has been on the face of it; but you would be wrong;
felixite is so lucky that even the earth feels blessed by it and tends to
produce more of the stuff from time to time, ecstatically, as it were, but
always in small amounts.

"Felixite!" Rognir gave a small, unconvincing laugh. "What makes you think
there's any around here?"

"A little mouse told me," Azzie said, making a clever al-lusion to Hermes'
former occupation as Mouse god, before he was abolished or transformed along
with the rest of the Olym-pians. This was completely lost on Rognir.

"There's no felixite around here," Rognir said. "The place was mined out long
ago."

"That hardly explains what you are doing here."

"Me? I was just taking a shortcut," Rognir said. "This place happens to be on
the underground great circle route from Baghdad to London."

"If that's the way it is," Azzie said, "you won't mind if I look around?"

"Why should I mind? Dirt's free for everybody."

"Well put," Azzie said, and started nosing around. His keen fox's nose soon
picked up the faintest strand of a smell that once, not long ago, might have
been associated with some-thing else, itself associated, perhaps only
fleetingly, with felixite. (Demons have great powers of smell in order to
render their time of service in the Pit all the more onerous.)

Sniffing like a fox, Azzie followed this elusive scent around the cavern and
directly to the lemur-skin bag that rested at Rognir's feet.

"You don't mind if I take a look in this, do you?" Azzie asked.

Rognir minded very much, but since dwarves are no match for demons in equal
contest, he decided to let discretion reign and to hell with valor.

"Help yourself."

Azzie emptied out the bag. He kicked aside the rubies which Rognir had
garnered in Burma, ignored the Colombian emeralds, pushed aside the southern
African diamonds with their sinister future connotations, and picked up a

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small piece of pink-colored stone, shaped in a cylinder.

"Looks like felixite to me," he said. "Would you mind if I borrowed this for
a while?"

Rognir shrugged since there was nothing he could do about it. "Just be sure
to give it back."

"Don't worry," Azzie said, and turned to leave. Then he looked again at the
precious stones scattered underfoot. He said, "Look here, Rognir, you seem a
good sort for a dwarf. How about if you and I strike a bargain?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"I have a certain enterprise afoot. I can't say much about it now, but it has
to do with the upcoming Millennial celebra-tions. I need the felixite and your
jewels, because without money a demon can do nothing. If I get the backing I
expect from the High Evil Powers, I will be able to repay you tenfold."

"But I was planning to take these home and add them to my heap," Rognir said.
He stooped down and began to pick up his jewels.

"You probably have a pretty big heap already, haven't you?"

"Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of," Rognir said, with the complacency of a
dwarf whose heap could bear comparison with the best.

"Then why not leave these stones with me? Your heap at home is plenty big
already."

"That doesn't stop me from wanting it to be bigger!"

"Of course not. But if you add them to your heap, your money won't be working
for you. Whereas if you invest this with me, it will."

"Money working for me? What a curious concept! I hadn't known money was
supposed to work."

"It is a concept from the future, and it makes very good sense. Why shouldn't
money work? Everything else has to."

"That's a good point," Rognir said. "But what assurance do I have that you
will keep your word? All I'll have is your word that your word's good if I
take this offer, whereas if I don't take the offer, I'll still have all my
gems."

"I can make this offer irresistibly attractive to you," Azzie said. "Instead
of following normal banking procedure, I am going to pay you your profit in
advance."

"My profit? But I haven't even invested with you."

"I realize that. Therefore, as an inducement, I am going to give you the
interest you will make in a year's time investing with me."

"And what do I have to do?"

"Just open your hands."

"Well, all right," said Rognir, who, like most dwarves, couldn't resist a

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profit.

"Here you are," Azzie said. He gave Rognir two of the smaller diamonds, one
ruby with the tiniest flaw, and three perfect emeralds.

Rognir accepted them and looked at them uncertainly. But aren't these mine?"

"Of course! They are your profit!"

"But they weremine to begin with!"

"I know. But you loaned them to me."

"I did? I don't remember."

"You remember accepting the profit, don't you, when I offered it?"

"Of course. Who turns down a profit?"

"You did quite right. But your profit was based on loaning me the stones so I
could make your profit from them. Now you have several of them back. But I
still owe you those that I returned as well as the rest. They are principal.
In a year you will get them all back. And you have already gotten the profit."

"I'm not so sure of this," Rognir mused.

"Trust me," Azzie said. "You've made a wise investment. It has been a
pleasure to do business with you."

"Wait a minute!"

Azzie scooped up the rest of the stones and, not forgetting the piece of
felixite, vanished into the upper world. Demons are able to vanish, of course,
and this generally gives them a working sense of theater.

Chapter 6

It was long since Azzie had visited Rome. This city was an especial favorite
of demons, and they had long been ac-customed to travel there for
sight-seeing, sometimes indi-vidually, often in groups of hundreds, complete
with women and children demons, and accompanied by guide demons who lectured
on what had gone on in this place or that. There was no lack of good things to
see. Above all, the cemeteries were high on the list of attractions. Reading
the tombstone inscrip-tions afforded much amusement and cemeteries were good
mel-ancholy places for reflection, what with their tall dark cypresses and
ancient moss-covered monuments. And, too, Rome was an exciting place to be in
those days, what with the continual electing of this Pope and excommunicating
of that Pope, as well as the opportunity to help things go a little worse.

And it was especially exciting because this was the Mil-lennium, the year
A.D. 1000. Otto III was Holy Roman Em-peror, and there was much contesting
between his German followers and the Italians who supported the local
candidates. The Roman nobles were regularly up in arms against Otto, and there
was continual attack and rout. It wasn't safe for a human to walk the streets
after dark, and there were perils even by day. Bands of lawless mercenaries
roamed the streets, and woe to man or maid who fell into their hands.

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Azzie flew in just at dusk, when the sun was setting over the Adriatic,
illuminating the domes and towers of Rome with brightness while the
terra-cotta rooftops were already darkened with evening gloom. He flew low
over the twisted streets, dip-ping down to take an appreciative look at the
Forum and the Colosseum. Then he gained altitude again and soared to the
Palatine. Here there was a very special cemetery, the Narbozzi, and this was
the place where the demons, since time out of mind, had been holding their
annual poker games. With luck, the game would be held here again this year.

The Narbozzi cemetery, stretching for many hectares along the undulating
northern limit of the Palatine, was covered with marble sarcophagi, stone
crosses, and family tombs. Azzie wan-dered among the Narbozzi's overgrown
grassy ways, which became clearer to him as the sun went down, for demons see
better at night, it being their natural medium. The cemetery was large and he
feared he might miss the location of the game altogether. He hoped not. He had
his good-luck amulet, Rog-nir's felixite, securely wrapped in parchment with a
sign of King Solomon on it. Also in his pouch were the gemstones of Rognir's
heap, his stake for the coming game.

He hurried along, and soon the twilight had given way to full night. A horned
moon appeared overhead, and Sirius the Dog Star glowed red in the heavens, a
fine omen for evil. There was a sound of locusts and a throbbing of frogs from
the nearby swamps. Azzie began to wonder if he had come to the wrong cemetery
- Rome at this time held the world record for ceme-teries of high antiquarian
interest. It would take him too long to check them all out, and he didn't even
have a complete list.

He was just starting to curse himself for his lack of pre-paredness- he
should have gotten in touch with the Super-natural Convention Committee to
find the exact location of the game-when he heard a sound, reassuringly
unhuman. He moved toward it, and it distinguished itself as laughter. It was
coming from the east side of the Narbozzi, the side known in antiquity as "the
Accursed." As he came closer he heard oaths being sworn, and then he made out
the tremendous kettledrum laughter of Newzejoth, one of the great lords among
demons, the sound of whose voice was unforgettable. Swiftly he flew to the
source of the sound.

The demons were camped in a little hollow between the great marble
sarcophagus of Romulus and the more recent tomb of Pompey. They were in a
small grove surrounded by a circle of ilex trees. Although they had been there
no more than a few hours, the area already showed the signs of chaos and
squalor which characterize demon gatherings. Huge vats of ichor had been
brought in for refreshment. There were fires here and there, and kitchen
familiars roasted people-parts of many dif-ferent nations over hot charcoal.

Azzie was soon made welcome by the other demons. "Light meat or dark?" a
succubus asked him. ButAzzie had no time to eat, delicious though the young
humans appeared to be, all golden brown from the spit.

"Where's the game?" he asked.

"Right over there," the succubus told him. She was an Indian demon, as Azzie
could tell by the ring in her nose and the fact that her feet were turned
backward. She smiled at him seductively. She was indeed beautiful, but Azzie
had no time for dalliance right now, nor the appetite, because gambling fever
was raging in his veins, and he hastened toward the circle.

The card-playing demons were gathered in a circle lit by balefires and tallow
candles made of unsavory waxy substances. There was also an outer circle of

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demons, gathered to watch and comment on the action. As Azzie came to the
circle a big hand was in progress. In the pot were a scattering of gold coins,
some silver denarii, and a human torso, worth plenty since blood was still
dripping from the stumps of its arms and legs. The final bet was made, and a
small, potbellied demon with skinny arms and legs and a great long nose (a
Laplander, to judge from his reindeer sweater) won it and raked it all in.

"New player!" someone called out, and they slid over and made room for Azzie.

Azzie sat down, laid out his jewels in front of him, and was given cards. He
was cautious at first. It had been quite a while since he had sat in on a
game. This time, even with the lucky amulet of felixite, he was determined to
be cautious, bet only good hands, fold when he was in doubt, and do all the
other things that poker players, human or demonic, are forever telling
themselves to do. He converted some of his gems into body parts and began to
play. There in the darkness, lit by the uncanny green-tinged flames of the
balefires, the game went on, with demons laughing and swearing as fortune
shifted from one to the other.

Demons playing poker are jolly companions as long as things are going well
for them. They start out a game in fine high fettle, betting entire human
heads and raising limbs with gay abandon. All this is accompanied by the sorts
of jokes demons consider hilarious but other beings consider in poor taste.
"Anyone for a hero sandwich?" one of the serving demons asked as a tray of
human parts was passed around.

Azzie's caution soon left him. He began to plunge, betting more and more
wildly. He was thinking of the Millennial Evil Deeds banquet and how much he
would like to participate. If only he could be a winner! He really wanted to
represent evil in the great Millennial contest between Light and Dark.

But unfortunately, his pile of parts kept dwindling. He knew he was betting
wildly, stupidly, demoniacally, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Caught up in the pace of the game, he scarcely noticed how the bigger demons
seemed to be getting all the big pots. What was going wrong with his felixite?
Why wasn't he winning any big hands?

Then it occurred to him that all demons carry good-luck charms, and the more
important the demon, the better the charm he could afford. It stood to reason
that the charms of the others were nullifying his own charm. He was being
wiped out again! It was unthinkable, and very unfair.

The night passed rapidly, and it wasn't long before Azzie noticed a faint
lightening in the eastern sky. Soon it would be dawn, when the game would have
to break up, unless someone had the keys to a private tomb. At this point
Azzie had lost most of what he had started with.

Feelings of rage and chagrin flooded his foxy head. The hand he was holding
was another bust, a pair of deuces and three middle cards. He was about to
fold it and give up when a feeling came over him. No, not exactly a feeling,
more a sensation. It was a warm glow that came from the vicinity of his pouch.
Was his good-luck amulet trying to tell him some-thing? Yes, it had to be! And
it occurred to him that if the felixite really wanted to help him, it would
wait for a single hand, then put all its capacity into winning that one for
him.

So certain was he that this was the true state of affairs that he wagered
recklessly on his bad hand, raising again and again.

He was given his final cards. He didn't look at them, but continued betting.

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There came the showdown. Spreading his cards, Azzie saw his deuces, and saw
that he had picked up another pair of deuces. He was about to declare two
pairs, when it dawned on him that he had four of a kind. No one else was even
close. The others grumbled and threw in their cards. The pot, biggest of the
night, was raked over to Azzie.

In it, aside from the pile of golden coins and gems and miscellaneous body
parts, was the hilt of a sword, its blade broken off, and tied around it, a
red silk lady's favor. There was also a pair of human legs, in very good
condition, scarcely gnawed at all. And a fair amount of lesser stuff,
knucklebones, septums, a set of kneecaps, which he turned in for gold.

Azzie, being a true demon, would have gone on gambling as long as he had a
penny or a body part to his name. But the sun had just peeped cautiously above
the eastern horizon and it was time for everyone to leave the graveyard. Azzie
stuffed his winnings into a stout canvas bag which he had been carrying around
for just such a purpose. The beginnings of an idea were starting to form in
his mind. It was still vague, but there was something there.

Chapter 1

After leaving the poker game, Azzie flew north. He had decided to look in on
the great convention of demons being held at Aachen, Charlemagne's old
capital, as part of the opening ceremonies for the Millennial contest. But
strong head winds held him up, since being invisible and slightly tenuous does
not reduce all air pressure and drag. By evening, he had gotten no farther
than Ravenna. He decided to pass up the convention and found a nice graveyard
to rest in outside the city walls.

It was a pleasant place, with plenty of big old trees, oaks and willows, a
pretty combination, and, of course, cypress, the stately death tree of the
Mediterranean. There were nicely de-caying tombs and mausoleums. In the
distance, he could see the sagging graystone outline of the city wall.

He made himself comfortable near a weathered headstone. What he needed now
was a cozy fire. He raided a nearby mausoleum and found several exceedingly
dry cadavers. These, together with some dead cats, who had been poisoned by
some busybody from the town, fed the flames.

As night wore on, Azzie found that he was getting hungry. He'd had a fine
feed last night at the poker game, and demons can go a long time between
meals, but flying into head winds all day had given him an appetite. He
emptied his sack to see what provisions he had left.

Ah, there were a couple of candied jackal's heads he had taken from the
party, wrapped in a bit of moldy winding-sheet. They were delicious morsels,
but they left him unfilled. He looked to see what else was in the sack and
discovered the pair of legs he'd won.

They looked delicious but he didn't really want to eat them. He remembered
some stirring of an idea when he'd first seen them, though now it was
forgotten. He was sure there was something he could do with them other than
eat them, so he propped them against a tombstone. They brought on an almost
irresistible desire to soliloquize. Demons at this time thought nothing of
traveling hundreds of miles to find a really good object to soliloquize over.

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It was an especially pleasant exercise on a desolate Italian upland "with a
thrusting wind and the distant bark of jackals.

"O legs," Azzie said, "I warrant you trooped nicely to your lady's favor, and
bowed well, too, since you are a pair of mus-cular and nimble legs, of the
sort the ladies look upon with favor. O legs, I imagine you now, widespread in
antic mirth, and then coiled tight together in that final paroxysm of love.
When you were young, O legs, you climbed many a stately oak, and ran near
running streams, and across the green friendly fields of your homeland. I
daresay you dove over thicket and hedge as you careened your way. No path was
too long for you, and you were never tired."

"Think you so?" a voice said from above and behind him. Azzie turned and
beheld the mournful cloaked figure of Hermes Trismegistus. He was not
surprised that the mage had followed him here. Hermes and the other old gods
seemed to follow a different destiny from demons or ghosts, a destiny
unaffected by questions of good and evil.

"Good to see you again, Hermes," Azzie said. "I was just philosophizing over
this pair of legs."

"I'm not going to stop you," Hermes said.

He had been floating in the air about five feet above Azzie's head. Now he
drifted gracefully to the ground, bent, and ex-amined the legs.

"What sort of man do you suppose these belonged to?" Hermes asked.

Azzie turned and considered the legs. "A merry sort, ob-viously, for look
you, they are still wrapped around with gaily colored woolen strips, of the
sort that dandies and fellows who think well of themselves affect."

"A dandy, do you think?"

"Most certainly, for look how exquisitely the calves are turned. And notice
how perfectly formed and finely muscled the thighs are. You might also notice
the small foot, with high, aristocratic arch, well-shaped toes, and evenly
clipped nails. Nor is there much in the way of callusing on the heel and along
the sides. This fellow did not have to do much to get his living, certainly
not with his feet! How do you suppose he met his fate?"

"I know not," Hermes said. "But we can soon find out."

"Have you some trick?" Azzie asked. "Some feat of con-juration unknown to the
common lot of demons?"

"Not for nothing," Hermes said, "am I the patron saint of the alchemists, who
invoke me when they concoct their mix-tures. They seek to turn base metal into
gold, but I can turn dead flesh into living memory."

"That seems a useful trick," Azzie said. "Can you show me?"

"With pleasure," Hermes said. "Let's see how these legs spent their last
day."

As is customary in conjurations, there was a puff of smoke and a sound as of
a brazen gong. As Azzie watched, the smoke parted and he saw . . .

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A young prince marching off in defense of his father's castle. A fair young
man he was, and well set up for the warrior trade. He marched at the head of
his troop of men, and they were a brave sight, their banners of scarlet and
yellow fluttering finely in the summer breeze. Then, ahead, they saw another
body of men, and the prince pulled his mount to a halt and called up his
seneschal.

"There they are," the prince said. "We have them fairly now, between a rock
and a hard lump of ice, as they say in Lapland."

This much Azzie saw. And then the vision faded.

"Can you read what fate befell him?" Azzie asked.

Hermes sighed, closed his eyes, lifted his head.

"Ah," he said, "I have tuned in on the battle, and what a fine engagement of
armed men it is! See how furiously they come together, and hear the
well-tempered swords singing! Yes, they clash, they are all brave, all deft.
But what is this . . . One of the men has left the circle. Not even wounded,
but giving retreat already! It is the former owner of these legs."

"Poltroon!" cried Azzie, for it was as though he could see the engagement.

"Ah, but he gets not off unscathed. A man is following, his eyes red with the
blood fury, a huge man, a berserker, one of those whom the Franks have been
fighting for hundreds of years, whom they call the madmen from the north!"

"I don't like the northern demons much, either," Azzie said.

"The berserker is running down the cowardly prince. His sword flashes - a
sidewise blow struck with an uncanny com-bination of skill and fury."

"Difficult to strike such a blow," Azzie commented.

"The blow is well struck-the poltroon prince is cloven in twain. His upper
half rolls in the dust. But his cowardly legs are still running, they are
running now from death. Relieved of the weight of his upper body, they find it
easy to run, though it is true they are running out of energy. But how much
energy does it take for a pair of legs to drive themselves, when no one else
is attached? Demons are pursuing these running legs, be-cause they have
already passed the boundaries of the normal, already they run in the limitless
land of possibilities that is the preternatural. And now, at last, they totter
a last few steps, turn, sway, and then crash lifeless to the ground."

"In short, we have here the legs of a coward," Azzie said.

"A coward, to be sure. But a sort of divine coward who would run from death
even in death, so afraid was he that what had in fact happened would happen."

Chapter 2

After Hermes left him to preside over a meeting of maguses in what would
someday be Zurich, Azzie sat and brooded. Moodily he poked the legs. They were
much too valuable to waste on snacking. That's what Hermes had implied in his
usual roundabout fashion.

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What should he do with them? He thought again about the great event, the
Millennial contest. What he needed was an idea, a concept. . . . He stared at
the legs, rearranged them this way and that. There must be something. . . .

Suddenly he sat up straight. Yes, the legs! He had it! A wonderful idea, one
that was sure to make his name in circles of evil. He had an idea for the
contest! It had come in a burst of demoniac inspiration. He must lose no time,
must hurry and get it on record, get cooperation from the Evil Powers. What
day was this? He calculated swiftly, then moaned. This was the last day in
which entries could be made. He must go to the High Demon Council, and
quickly.

Taking a deep breath, he propelled himself away from Earth to the region of
Limbo where the high council was meet-ing. It is not generally realized, but
demons have as much trouble getting in to see someone in the top level of
command as mortals do. If you're not high up in the hierarchy, if you're not
related to someone important, if you are not a gifted athlete, then forget
anything immediate; you have to go through chan-nels, and that can take time.

Azzie didn't have time, however. Next morning, the High Committee would pick
a winner, and the game would be set.

"I gotta see the Game Committee," Azzie said to the demon guard at the gate
of the Ministry, the great group of buildings, some baroque and ornamental
with onion-shaped domes, others severely modern and rectilinear, where the
affairs of demons, imps, and other evil supernatural creatures were regulated.
Many demons worked here as clerks: a lot of paper was required in the
never-ending attempt to codify the behavior of super-natural creatures. The
government of Supernatural Creatures of Evil was more extensive than any on
Earth and employed most of the demons of Hell in one capacity or another. And
this was despite the fact that the governing of demons had never been
sanctioned by a higher power. The only recognized power above Good and Evil
was the strange and misty thing called Ananke, Necessity. It was not certain
whether the chain of command stopped at Ananke or went on to even higher
levels. Ananke was as far as demoniac theorists had reached. The theorists had
difficulty communicating with Ananke because it was so mysterious, so
difficult to pin down, so unbodied, and so uncommunicative that it was
impossible to be sure of any-thing about it except that it seemed to exist.
Ananke judged the contests between Good and Evil which were held every
thousand years. Its decisions were reached mysteriously. An-anke was a law
unto itself, but it was a law that showed only glimpses of itself, and never
stood still for explication.

But why should demons have to be ruled? In theory, demons were autonomous
creatures who followed their impulses, i.e., to do evil. But there seemed to
be a built-in perversity in the makeup of intelligent creatures, whether
natural or superna-tural, that made them go against the grain, against what
was best for them, against all the things they should believe. Thus the demons
needed the first necessity of government, a bureau of Conformity, and this
cheered them no end because their top theorists believed that the enforcing of
the standards of evil was worse, evilwise, than the doing of evil itself. It
was difficult to be sure of this, but it seemed reasonable.

Azzie was acting in a nonconformist manner as he burst past the guards, who
stared at him slack-jawed, taken aback because this was definitely undemonic
behavior. Demons are usually toadies to those above them. But they hesitated
to chase after and stop him because the fox-headed young demon had seemed more

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than a little crazed, and if that were so, he might be divinely inspired, that
is, inspired by Satan himself, in whose invisible service all of the powers of
evil toiled as an act of faith.

Azzie ran through the corridors of the Ministry, well aware why the guardian
demons had not tried to stop him. That was all very well, buthe knew he was
not inspired, and he also knew that the high council would not be amused by
any of this. It occurred to him that he had made a very big mistake, had taken
more upon himself than he could deal with. But he thrust that thought from his
mind, his determination stiffening. Now that he had begun, he would have to
continue.

He raced up one side of an impressive double stairway, turned to his left,
almost overturning an urn filled with freshly picked spring weeds, and
continued down the corridor, making left turns whenever the choice presented
itself, racing past sub-ordinate demons with their hands full of papers, until
he came to a high bronze door. He knew this had to be the place. He pushed
open the door and entered.

When Azzie burst in, the meeting of the Powers of Evil was in full session.
It was not a happy meeting. Discontent was man-ifest on the bestial faces of
the major demons. Mouths were turned down, eyes red and swollen.

"What is this?" Belial said, standing up on his goat feet to better peer at
Azzie, who was now bowing low.

Azzie, tongue-tied, could only stammer and stare.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Azazel said, hunching his mighty shoulders and
ruffling his dark wings. "It's a demon of the common sort who has presumed to
break in upon us. I don't know what the young are coming to these days. It
wasn't like this in my time. Young demons were respectful then, and de-sirous
of pleasing their elders. Now they barge around in gangs, sewer gangs I have
heard them called, and they don't care whom they offend with their noisy
behavior. Not satisfied with this, they even elect one of their number to
break into our inner sanctorum and taunt us."

Belial, an old rival of Azazel's, pounded with his hoof on the table and
said, in mincing words, "The right honorable member is sufficiently talented
to expand a single demonic in-trusion into an onslaught by a sewer warfare
gang. I see no gang: only a single rather foolish-looking demon. I would also
point out thatsanctum is more correct thansanctorum in this case, which the
honorable member would know if he had ever mastered the dear old mother
tongue, Latin."

Azazel's eyes smoldered, little wisps of blue smoke came out of his snout,
corrosive acid dripped from his nose and ate holes in the ironwood table.
"I'll not be mocked," he said, "by a jumped-up nature spirit who has beenmade
a demon rather than born one and who, because of his ambiguous ancestry,
cannot be relied upon to understand the true nature of evil."

Other members clamored to be heard, because demons loved to argue about who
really understood evil, who was most evil, and by extension, who was
insufficiently bad. Azzie, how-ever, had now regained his poise. He realized
that the attention of the Lord Demons would soon be turned to him. So he made
haste to speak in his own defense.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I am sorry to be the cause of this dispute. I would

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not have broken in on you if I had not some-thing urgent to say."

"Yes," Belial said. "Whyhave you come? And I notice that you haven't brought
any presents, as is customary. What have you to say for yourself?"

"I come without presents," Azzie said, "that is true. It was my haste, and I
beg apology. But I do bear something more important."

He paused. It was that dramatic demon sense working in him that made him stop
at that moment rather than blurt on.

The Demon Lords also knew a thing or two about drama.

They stared at him in accusing silence. After what seemed like forever,
Belphegor, who was anxious to adjourn this committee and get a little sleep,
said, "All right, damn you, what do you bear that is more important than
presents?"

In a low, husky voice, Azzie said, "What I bear, gentlemen, is that most
precious of things: an idea."

Chapter 3

Azzie's words hit upon a common concern among the Lord Demons, namely, their
need for an idea for the coming Light versus Dark festivities, a drama that
would be their entry into the contest of Good versus Evil, and whose outcome
would demonstrate, homiletically, as it were, the superiority of Evil, thus
giving them the right to dominate man's destiny for the next thousand years.

"What is this idea?" Belial asked.

Azzie bowed low and began to tell them the story of Prince Charming.

Fairy tales have great weight and resonance for demons as well as for humans.
All of the Demon Lords knew the Prince Charming story-of how a youth came
forth to save a princess who had been enchanted by a spell and cast into a
perpetual sleep. This prince was Prince Charming, who, aided by his pure heart
and loyal spirit, fought his way through the various dan-gers that beset the
Princess, conquered them all, won through the wall of thorns to her castle,
climbed to the top of the moun-tain of glass upon which her palace had been
set, and kissed her. Whereupon she awoke, and they married and lived happily
ever after.

Azzie proposed to stage this pretty story, but with char-acters of his own
devising.

"Gentlemen, give me a grant so that I can draw freely upon Supply- and I will
create a Prince and a Princess who will act out the Prince Charming-Sleeping
Beauty story and turn this insipid tale on its ear. My couple will demonstrate
a different ending. Their conclusion to the tale, arrived at by their own free
will, with only a minimum of behind-the-scenes tampering on my part, will show
conclusively, to the enjoyment of our friends and the confusion of our
enemies, that given a free hand, evil must inevitably win in the contests of
the human spirit."

"Not a bad idea," Azazel said. "But what makes you think that your actors,

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given free will, will act the way you want them to?"

"That can be ensured," Azzie said, "by careful selection of the body parts,
and appropriate education once they are selected and animated into persons."

"Careful selection?" Phlegethon asked. "What do you mean by that?"

"Here is the very first item," Azzie said, "around which I intend to build my
Prince Charming."

He removed from his canvas bag the pair of legs he had won at the demons'
poker game. The Lord Demons leaned forward to regard them. By the combined
weight of their gaze a cloud of body memory issued forth, and each demon could
see for himself the history of this pair of legs, and how their owner had come
to lose them.

"A devilish cowardly pair of legs indeed," Belial said.

"True, my lord," Azzie said. "A prince with these legs would never stay the
course of a difficult trial. The legs them-selves would almost haul him back
to shameful safety!"

"Is that the destined outcome of your planned charade?" Belial asked.

"No, it is not, lord," Azzie said. "I crave your indulgence not to force me
to reveal the conclusion of my scheme too soon, for much of the pleasure in
its making lies in following a creative intuition without knowing too firmly
in advance its outcome."

There may have been difficulties about Azzie's plan, but the time to select
an entry was at hand, and nothing better had come along. The assembled Lord
Demons nodded. "I think we have something here," Belial said. "What do you
think, my colleagues?"

The others humphed and griffed but finally gave their assent.

"Go forth, then," Belial said to Azzie, "and do what you have promised. You
are our entry, our chosen one. Go, and produce horror and evil in our name."

"Thank you," Azzie said, genuinely moved. "But I'll need money to do this.
Body parts such as I want don't come cheap. And there is the matter of the
other things I'll need-two castles, one for each protagonist, and a mansion
for myself from which to operate. Also the wages of a servant, and quite a few
other things."

The lords issued him a black credit card with his name embossed in fiery
letters above an inverted pentagram, insert-able anyplace dark and sinister.
"With this," Belial said, "you will have instant and unlimited credit with
Supply. You can call them up anytime and anywhere, so long as you find
some-place foul in which to insert the card. But that should be no difficulty,
the world being what it is. It is also good for control of meteorological
phenomena."

"But you must supply your own hero and heroine," Azazel told him. "And, of
course, the directing of the action is all your responsibility."

"Accepted," Azzie said. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

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Chapter 4

If someone had been watching, from a high window in the steeply pitched
narrow old house above the main square in the village of Hagenbeck, he might
have seen a man arriving in the public coach from Troyes. This man was tall
and attractive. He was neither young nor old. His face was not displeasing,
and had about it a sternness that marked its owner as a person of some
consequence. He wore clothing of good English cloth, and his shoes had fine
brass buckles. He got off at Hagenbeck, went directly into the inn, and asked
for rooms. When the owner, Herr Gluck, wondered about the new arrival's
ability to pay, Azzie (for such it was) produced a purse in which rested
innumerable pieces of Spanish gold cast in doubloons.

"Very fine, indeed, sir," the innkeeper said, cringing to show his
appreciation. "We have our finest apartment open. Usually it is occupied, but
everyone is gone to the great fair in Champagne."

"Then it is mine," said Azzie.

It was very fine, the main room having a large bower window. There was even a
little bathroom in which to clean up, not that demons make much use of such
things.

At first Azzie lay down on the big bed with its feather down coverlet and its
fine plump pillows. It seemed to him that his career was finally beginning. He
was amazed at how quickly he had moved, from a lowly servitor in North
Discomfort 405 to the impresario of a fine new game for the Millennial
cele-brations. He lay on the bed and pondered his good fortune for a time,
then bestirred himself, anxious to get his scheme started.

The first thing he needed was a servitor. He decided to consult the landlord
about this requirement.

"Of course you must have a servitor," the fat landlord said. "I was amazed
that such a fine gentleman as yourself didn't come equipped with servants and
a considerable traveling chest. Since you have money, that shouldn't be hard
to put to rights."

"I need a special sort of servant," Azzie said. "One who may be called upon
to do deeds of a most unusual nature."

"Might I inquire," the landlord asked, "just what nature your excellency is
speaking about?"

Azzie looked keenly at the landlord. He was fat and com-placent looking, but
there was a sinister cast to his features. This man was no stranger to evil
deeds. He was a man who would stop at nothing, and who knew a sort of glee at
the thought of evil deeds, finding in them the excitement his normal life
lacked.

"Landlord," Azzie said, "the deeds I will require may not be entirely within
the ken of the king's law."

"Yes, sir," the landlord said.

"I have prepared here," Azzie said, "a little list of the requirements I need

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in a servitor. I wish you could tack this up somewhere. ..."

He handed a sheet of parchment to the landlord. The landlord took it, moved
it back and forth to get into reading range.

It read: "Servitor needed, a man not squeamish, accus-tomed to blood and
gore, honest and reliable, up for anything."

He read it several times, then said, "A man like this might be found, if not
in our village of Hagenbeck, then in nearby Augsburg. But I shall be pleased
to nail this on our front wall, along with the listings for hay and oats, and
we shall see what comes of it."

"Do that," Azzie said. "And send me up a flagon of your best wine, in case
the wait becomes onerous."

The landlord louted low and took his departure. Within minutes he sent up the
servant girl, a poor creature with de-formed face and halting gait, carrying
not only the flagon of wine, but also some small cakes which the cook had
baked just that day.Azzie rewarded her with a silver penny, for which she was
pathetically grateful. He then sat himself down and feasted. Demons do not
really require food, of course, but when they take human form they also take
on human desires. This appetite for food was one of them. Azzie dined well,
and af-terward sent for the blackbird pie he could smell baking in the inn's
well-founded kitchen.

It was not long before the first applicant knocked at his door. He was a tall
young man, thin as a weed, and with wild light blond hair that floated around
his head in a sort of nimbus. His clothing was presentable, although much
patched. He held himself well, and bowed low when Azzieopened the chamber
door.

"Sire," the stranger said, "I read your notice belowstairs, and I have come
quickly to present myself to you. I am Augustus Hye, and I am a poet by
trade."

"Indeed?" said Azzie. "This is a somewhat unusual post for a poet."

"Not at all, sire," Hye said. "Poets must perforce deal with the most extreme
of human emotions. Blood and gore would suit me fine, since they would prove
good subjects for my poems, in which I will consider the vanity of life and
the inevitability of death."

Azzie was not entirely satisfied with what he heard. The poet didn't seem
really suited for the task. But Azzie decided to give him a trial.

"Do you know the local graveyards?" Azzieasked.

"Of course, my lord. Graveyards are a favorite place for poets who crave
contemplation to bring to their minds great and dolorous deeds."

"Then hie you to such a place this evening, when the moon is down, and bring
me a nicely aged human skull, with or without hair, it makes no difference.
And if you can bring me some ladies' fingers, all the better."

"Ladies' fingers, sire? You are referring to the confection of that name?"

"Not at all," said Azzie. "I am referring to the actual and literal objects."

Hye looked uncomfortable. "Such items are hard to come by."

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"I know that," Azzie said. "If they were easy, I would go forth and get them
myself. Now go and see what you can do."

Hye left, not happily. Already his hopes were fading. Like all poets he was
more used to talking about blood and gore than actually getting his hands into
it. But still, he decided to attempt the task because Lord Azzie, as he called
himself, was evidently a wealthy man and might be counted upon to give out
much largess.

Azzie's next caller was an old woman. She was tall and lean, dressed entirely
in black. She had small eyes and a long nose; her lips were thin and
bloodless.

"I know you advertised for a man," she said, after dropping a deep curtsy,
"but I hoped that you might not be adamant in that choice. I will make a
wonderful servitor for you, Lord Azzie, and you can enjoy my favors into the
bargain."

Azzie shuddered. This old beldame really fancied herself if she thought that
any lord, or any demon masquerading as a lord, would fancy her for anything
more than pulling off his boots after a hard day's riding. Nevertheless, he
decided he would be fair about it.

He repeated the instructions he had given the poet Hye. The aged beldame,
whose name was Agatha, also seemed taken aback. She was one of those who
believed that appearance was the better part of evil. For many years she had
gotten by in Hagenbeck solely by her appearance, and the reputation it had
given her for evil deeds. She had thought this job would be just the right
thing for her, since she already looked the part of one who would stop at no
evil deed and would take delight in blood and gore. But, despite her
appearance, she was one who had difficulty even in cutting off a chicken's
head. Nevertheless, she said she would do her best and promised to return at
midnight with her spoils.

That was the end of the applicants for that day. Azzie was not well
satisfied. The people in these parts seemed to have little appetite for his
sort of work. But he would see. Having a servant was absolutely necessary.

Chapter 5

That afternoon, Azzie went to nearby Augsburg and spent the rest of the day
strolling about observing its ancient
churches. Demons are very interested in churches, which, though Powers of
Good reside in them, can as often as not be twisted to serve evil. In the
early evening he returned to the Inn of the Hanged Man in Hagenbeck, but
learned from the landlord that no other persons had applied for the post he
had offered.

He took out the black credit card and looked it over care-fully. It was a
beautiful thing, and he had the desire to call up something that would amuse
him, like dancing girls. But he decided against it. First things first. He
needed a good human servitor. After that, both the work and the fun would
begin.

In the evening he decided to take his dinner downstairs with the

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tradespeople. He had a special table for himself, cur-tained off from the
crowd. But he kept a bit of the curtain drawn back so he could watch their
antics.

The people ate and drank and caroused, and Azzie won-dered how they could be
so light of heart. Did they not know that the Millennium was approaching?
Elsewhere in Europe men knew about this, and were taking whatever precautions
they could. There were Dances of the Dead being held on blasted heaths, and
all manner of signs and portents. Many people were sure the end of the world
was coming. Some turned to prayer. Others, deciding they were doomed, passed
their time in eating and sexual activity. The Angel of Death had been sighted
in a dozen places around Europe, surveying the territory and making a
preliminary census of all who would be taken. In churches and cathedrals
anathemas were intoned against promiscuity and license. But all this was to
little or no avail. People's spirits had been roused and frightened by the
approach of the grim year when it was said the dead would rise in the streets,
the figure of the Antichrist would be seen in the land, and all things would
gather themselves for Apocalypse, the last great battle between the forces of
Good and Evil.

Azziehimself had no need for such vulgar superstitions. He knew that
mankind's game was a long way from being played out. There would be contests
like this for many thou-sands of years into the future, as there had been for
thousands of years into the past, though the memory of mankind retained only
the most confused memories of this.

At last Azzie grew tired and went up to the bedroom. It still lacked a half
hour or so of midnight. Azzie didn't believe either Hye or Agatha would
return. They seemed not to be made of stern enough stuff. But he decided to
show them the courtesy of staying up for them anyhow.

The minutes dragged by, and a hush fell over the village. This was the time
Azzie loved best, the minutes approaching midnight, when the complexion of the
world changed, when the dusky sanctities of evening had been forgotten, and
the saving grace of dawn was still far away. It was in these hours, between
midnight and dawn, that evil always felt most at peace with itself, most
experimental, most in need of strangeness and sin, most in need of producing
the ever-pervading perversions which needed constant renewal, and the doing of
which was a delight to the evil soul.

Midnight came and passed and no one knocked at his door. Azzie was growing
bored, and the big four-poster bed with its Huffy eiderdown looked exceedingly
comfortable. It was a temptation, and since demons are not supposed to resist
temptation, he gave in, got up on the bed, and closed his eyes. He fell into a
deep sleep, and in that sleep a dream came to him. In his dream three maidens
clad all in white came to him carrying holy articles in their hands. They
beckoned to him, saying, "Come, Azzie, join us in our frolic." And Azzie,
looking at them, was greatly desirous of joining them, for they smiled and
winked at him most enticingly. But there was something about them he didn't
like, something which said to his trained eye that they really didn't care for
evil, were merely feigning it in order to lure him into their clutches.
Nevertheless, he was drawn toward them, almost against his will, even though
he repeated to himself lines from the Credo of Evil: that the good is capable
of assuming a pleasing form and that a demon must take care not to be seduced
by that which only seems evil. The Credo didn't help. They reached out to him.
...

He never learned the outcome because he was awakened by a tapping at the

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door. He sat up and pulled himself together. How ridiculous it was to be
afraid of being tainted by good! It was a standard fear among demons, and it
gave him a turn, dreaming of it.

The tap came again.

Azzie checked his appearance in the cracked mirror. He smoothed his eyebrows,
brushed back his red hair, and gave an experimental leer. Yes, he was
decidedly horrific tonight, ready for any applicant who came through the door.

"Come in," he said.

When the door opened and he beheld his visitor, he was more than a little
surprised.

The person who entered was not familiar. He was a very small man with a large
hump upon his back. He had on a large black cloak which was wrapped completely
around him, its hood raised. His long, bony face was dead white, sepulchral.
As he advanced Azzie noticed that he walked with the help of a cane.

"And who," Azzie asked, "are you, to come calling upon me at this hour?"

"I am Frike," the lame hunchback replied. "I have come in answer to your ad.
You wanted a servant, it seems, one who would be up for anything. I put myself
forth as just such a person."

"You are not afraid to recommend yourself," Azzie said. "But there are two
applicants ahead of you. I set them a simple task and now I await their
return."

"Ah, yes," Frike said. "I happened to meet them, the poet and the beldame.
They were at the gates of the cemetery, trying to get up the courage to do
what you required of them."

"They should not have delayed so long," Azzie said. "The time set for their
appearance is already past."

"Why, master," Frike said, "they met with certain unfor-tunate accidents. And
so I have come in their stead."

"What accidents?" Azzie asked.

"My lord," Frike said, "I brought the items you requested of them."

Frike reached inside his cloak and took out a leather satchel of
tanned cowhide. Opening it, he removed two packets wrapped in sackcloth.
Opening one, he removed eight fingers and one thumb, neatly severed, perhaps
with a razor.

"Behold," Frike said. "The lady's fingers."

"These are somewhat gummy," Azzie said, examining the fingers and nibbling
one of them.

"They are the best I could provide on short notice," Frike said.

"And why is there not a full set? A thumb is missing!"

"Your lordship might not have noticed," Frike said, "since to notice such a
thing would be beneath your dignity. But I would point out, sire, that Agatha,

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who aspired to the post of your servant, had a thumb missing. I do not know
the story of its loss, and I'm afraid now I can't find it out for you."

"It is of little importance," Azzie said. "But I also asked for a head."

"Ah, yes," Frike said. "The quest you set for the poet. Now you would think,
sir, that his would be an easy task, since our local cemetery is full of the
sort of specimens you asked for. But he walked around outside the graveyard,
then finally went in and put his spade here and then changed his mind and put
it there, until at last I got sick of waiting for him to complete the task. So
I took the liberty, my lord, of procuring the object and eliminating my
opposition in a single stroke."

So saying, he opened the satchel and displayed the head of Hye, the poet.

"Not cleanly severed, I notice," Azzie said, but it was just for form's sake,
for he was well pleased with the work of this applicant for the position of
his helper.

"I regret there was no time to wait for the perfect stroke," Frike said. "But
since he is well known hereabouts as a bad poet, I daresay he's missed many a
clean stroke himself."

"Frike, you have done very well. You shall enter my em-ploy at once. I think
that you are a paragon among mortals. And since you have done so well at this,
I'm sure you will have no problem getting me the things I need, once I have
explained them and scouted out the territory."

"I expect to serve you well, master," Frike said.

Azzie went to his chest, opened it, and from a small deer-skin bag, extracted
four golden thalers. He gave these to Frike, who louted low in gratitude.

"And now," Azzie said, "we must go to work. Midnight is past; the time of
evil is at hand. Are you up for what may come, Frike?"

"Indeed I am."

"And what do you expect as your reward?"

"Only to continue serving you, lord," Frike said, "after death as before."

Thus Azzie knew that Frike knew who, or rather, what he was. He was pleased
to find so intelligent a servant. He bade Frike pack the things. They would
set to work at once.

Chapter 6

Before anything else could be done, Azzie needed a place from which to
operate. The Inn of the Hanged Man possessed many fine features, but the space
was too limited and the other customers too apt to be curious. And as Azzie
and Frike gathered their specimens there was the problem of the smell. Azzie
knew several master spells to keep human meat relatively fresh, but not even a
magic spell could take away the odor of death and decay that hung over his
work. Even hiring men to bring down ice from the Alps was insufficient, for
keeping constant relays going would be a monumental enterprise. And the Powers

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of Darkness had ve-toed his scheme in this regard, saying it didn't warrant
the expense, and it would call too much attention to him and his work.

The question, then, was where to locate the home and alchemical laboratory
that would be needed. He needed to stay close to the heart of Europe because
that was where the action was. He settled finally upon the town of Augsburg,
in the Alps near Zurich. It was a fine small city, located on a trade route.
This meant that he could purchase from passing vendors the spices and simples
he needed for the work. Augsburg was also good because it was a well-known
center for witchcraft. Since everyone there suspected everyone else of
sorcery, no undue suspicion was likely to fall upon him.

He met with the burgomeister and arranged the long-term rental of the
high-steepled Château des Artes on the northern edge of town. This noble old
building, built over the ruins of a Roman villa which had been lived in by a
praetor in the old days of the Roman empire, suited him admirably. Since the
cellar was extensive there was no problem over where to keep his growing
collection of body parts. And finally, he was near enough to Zurich and Basle
to ensure a good supply of addi-tional material from the medical schools in
those areas.

But it was summer, and even his preserving spells were pushed to their
limits. Finally, he had to resort to an additional remedy. It was known of old
that when anything organic was put into a vat containing ichor, it kept for a
long time. Indeed, ichor was the universal solution, good to drink, capable of
miracles when used for other purposes.

Obtaining a sufficient quantity of ichor proved a problem, however. Supply
tried to keep every drop of it for themselves. It was only after asking Hermes
Trismegistus to intercede for him that Azzie received a quantity adequate for
his purposes. And even then he had to counsel Frike, on pain of great torture
and possible death, not to touch the precious supplies.

The breasts, haunches, kneecaps, and elbows were easy enough. Ribs and
shoulders were in good supply. But Azzie wanted to know the antecedents of
every piece of meat he bought, and this knowledge was often beyond the ken of
the men he dealt with. Bit by bit, as the warm days wore on with a deepening
of greens and the spread of summer flowers, he collected a goodly mess of
pieces. But these were the least important parts. The heads, the faces, the
hands-these were crucial, and hard to come by.

More days passed, summer storms rattled and rolled, and it seemed he was
getting no closer to his goal. He assembled a sample human which stumbled
about gibbering until he put it back in the rendering vat, a poor dottering
idiot. The creature's brain had evidently decayed before it could be
preserved. Azzie began to wonder whether he hadn't bitten off more than he
could chew.

But the bright days of summer made the year's-end dead-line seem an eternity
away, and he called in laborers to repair the château. He hired husbandmen
from nearby villages to put in quick-growing crops. He found these chores an
oddly sat-isfying way of passing the time while the head-hunt went on.

The Château des Artes was conveniently situated for jour-neys south to Italy,
west to France, east toward Bohemia and Hungary. So while he filled his time
with householder's tasks, he sent Frike far and wide on a big gray horse, two
pack animals trailing behind. While Frike turned up many curious and useful
items, it seemed a slack season for heads. Heads . . .

He told the mayor of the town, Estel Castelbracht, that he was engaged in

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various researches to find cures for the plague, the ague, and the tertian
fever, which had been sweep-ing these parts since Roman times. He explained
that it was necessary to conduct his researches on human flesh, with meth-ods
learned from the great alchemists of the period. The mayor, and then the
people, took him at his word, for he seemed a jolly sort, never reluctant to
treat local sick, very often with good results.

While doing this, Azzie was also considering the props he would need for his
Prince Charming game. He sent to Supply for lists of goods, but their replies
were always vague, filled with stipulations such as "if still in stock" or
"out of stock, more expected soon." What was especially annoying was their
re-sponse to his request for two castles, one for Prince Charming, the other
for Princess Scarlet. The powers at Supply, speaking to him through an
oracular owl, told him that they were clean out of castles at the moment.
Azzie argued with them, explaining that this was a priority job which had the
imprimatur of the High Demon Council. "Yes," they said, "they are all priority
jobs, and we can only do what we can. ..."

He decided he'd better go to Supply, look over their stores himself, and set
aside what he would need when his Prince and Princess were ready to be
assembled. Yes, it was time to go to Limbo, that ill-defined region where are
shaped the superna-tural events that push and pull at the mixed destiny of
mankind. And keep an eye out for the proper head ...

Chapter 7

Azzie departed with a feeling of regret. He knew that he should not allow
himself to get sentimental over land he would occupy for only a short time,
and which he lived on only in order to serve a special purpose. Still, all
that work on the mansion and fields . . . He had never put that much of
himself into a place before, watching it change in accord with his wishes. It
was beginning to feel kind of ... homey.

And the journey to Limbo was not without its dangers. There was always
difficulty passing from one realm to another. The laws of a realm, like those
of Earth itself, are not to be understood completely. How less completely,
then, were under-stood the strange laws which governed the movement between
realms.

Luckily, nothing went wrong this time. He made the nec-essary preparations
and spoke the Greek words, the Hebrew exclamation. The fire flared and he
suddenly occupied a spot on a long plain, bleak black mountains on either
side. The sky was white and hot and there were occasional green swirls in it,
as of djinns flying fast in formation.

Just to get around in Limbo was a considerable chore, since its extent was
limitless. Luckily, some of its more impor-tant places existed reasonably
close together and they exerted something of a pull which drew visitors to
them. And there was the Roc service, of which Azzie was able to avail himself.
The huge birds had been extinct on Earth for a long time, because of
difficulties in making a living after the Pleistocene. But with their broad
backs, they were admirably suited for taxi service in this place.

Supply looked like a huge series of warehouses set in the middle of the
plain. Supply had wanted plenty of room. Here, Supply's space was sufficient
to store all of the living rooms on Earth, with plenty of room left for

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kitchens and stables. In actual fact, they had never tried to fill all their
warehouses. The number of things they would need was limited only by human
imagination, which at one time or another sought all things. The number of
things that could be of use in the invisible powers' continual attempt either
to enlighten or subvert hu-manity was never-ending and called upon everything
under the suns. You could never tell when some demon would need a Thracian
spear from A.D. 55 or something equally esoteric. Sup-ply simulated most of
what was asked for, and Supply possessed some of the most imaginative scene
designers ever known.

Supply was built on a bank of the Styx, that stupendous river that runs
through Earth and all the heavens and hells, and upon whose dusky surface the
ancient boatman, Cha-ron, plied his way between the centuries and the worlds.
The supernatural powers he sometimes served considered Earth the greatest game
ever conceived and had no wish to be discon-nected from any aspect of it, no
matter how far in the future or the past.

Azzie dismounted from the Roc. He walked rapidly, oc-casionally gliding when
walking grew onerous, and made his way down the long streets, both sides of
which were flanked with warehouses. All of the warehouses had the sign,
UNAU-THORIZED PERSONNEL STAY OUT. Armed Salis, the neutral spir-its of Limbo,
stood guard. They were armed with energy dissipators. These weapons, which
resembled spears with gun sights and triggers, let forth rays of
pattern-disrupting particles (though some said waves) which would disrupt the
personality pattern of even the greatest of the demons, "whipping his brains
to tapioca" in the phrase popular that year. Azzie gave them a wide berth.
Limbo had become a dangerous place of late, and this was due more to the
guards than the guarded.

At length he came to a warehouse which had an unguarded door. Over it was the
sign, INQUIRIES MAY BE MADE HERE. It was a surprisingly blunt statement for so
vague and conceptual a place, but Azzie lost no time going to it.

Inside he found about twenty demons of all sorts and de-grees waiting their
turn to lodge complaints with a bored young demon clerk who wore a plaid
golfing cap in defiance of tem-poral clothing regulations (demons can go into
the past or fu-ture, but they are not supposed to bring back souvenirs).

Azzie flashed his black credit card and pushed his way to the head of the
line. "This is top priority," he told the clerk. "I've got full clearance from
the High Demon Council."

"Is that a fact?" the young demon asked, unimpressed.

Azzie showed his black credit card.

"Is what he says true?" the clerk asked the card.

"BELIEVE IT!" the card flashed back.

"All right," the demon said. "What can we do for you, Mister Big Shot?"

Azzie resented the young demon's attitude but decided now was not the time to
make an issue of it.

"The first thing I need," Azzie said, "is two castles. I know that's a lot to
ask, but I really need them."

"Two castles, huh?" The young demon eyed him unsym-pathetically. "I suppose
your whole plan will fail if you don't have them."

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"That's exactly right."

"Then resign yourself to failure, buddy, because we have only one castle, and
even that isn't a proper castle; it's mostly an outline with a real wall and
barbicon, but all the rest is mental construct held together by old magic
spells."

"That's ridiculous," Azzie said. "I thought Supply had an unlimited number of
castles."

"That was true quite some time ago. But recently the prem-ise has been
changed. The possibilities have been narrowed. It means a lot more trouble for
everyone, but it keeps things inter-esting. That, at least, is the theory of
the Supply-side deviltry."

"I never heard of it," Azzie said. "Do you know what you're talking about?"

"If I did," the clerk said, "would I be in this menial job, telling guys like
you they can only have one castle?"

"All right," Azzie said, "I'll take the castle you've got."

The clerk scribbled something on a sheet of parchment. "You'll have to take
it as is. We haven't got time to patch it up any further."

"What's the matter with it?"

"I told you about the magic spells that hold the place together. There're not
enough of them, so parts of the castle disappear every now and then."

"Which parts?" Azzie asked.

"That depends on the weather," the clerk said. "Since the castle is bound
together by dry-weather spells, long periods of rain play hell with its
provisional existence."

"Isn't there a plan of some sort showing which parts vanish when?"

"Of course there's a plan," the clerk said. "But it needs updating. You'd be
crazy to trust it."

"I want it anyway," Azzie said. He had a lot of respect for scratchings on
parchment.

"Where do you want me to put this castle?" the clerk asked.

"Just a minute, this won't work. I really do need two castles. I have two
different beings. One of them has to get from his castle to the castle of the
woman he loves, or thinks he loves. I really need two castles."

"How about one castle and one very large house?"

"No, it's entirely out of the spirit of the game."

"Make do with one," the clerk suggested. "You can shuttle them around. It's
easy enough to change the appearance of a castle. Especially when rooms keep
on disappearing."

"I suppose I'll have to," Azzie said. "Or I could use my château for one of

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them. How soon can you send it?"

"Hey, for you I'll get on it right away," the clerk demon said, in a voice
that implied Azzie wouldn't see that castle before Hell froze over. Azzie
caught the tone and tapped the black credit card. It flashed: "DO WHAT HE
SAYS! NO HORS-ING AROUND!"

"All right," said the clerk. "I was only kidding. Where do you want this
castle delivered?"

"Do you know a region of Earth called Transylvania?"

"Don't worry. I'll find it," the clerk said.

"Uh, wouldn't know where I could turn up a good head, would you? Human?
Male?"

The clerk just laughed.

And so it was that Azzie left Supply and returned to Earth, where nearly a
week had passed. He went to the Château des Artes and was irritated to
discover that Frike was nowhere to be found. He went outside and mounted his
horse. He was going to ride into Augsburg and seek him out.

Storming into the office of Estel Castelbracht, he asked directly whether he
had seen the man. There seemed no need for great subtlety.

"Indeed I did," Castelbracht said. "He was hurrying down the street, and he
went into the house of Dr. Albertus over yon. I heard him muttering something
about a head - "

"Thank you," Azzie said, passing him money, as was his wont on dealing with
anyone in an official capacity, when he could afford it.

Chapter 8

The doctor's house was at the end of the little lane that led to the town
wall. The house stood all by itself, a tall, narrow old building with ground
floor of stone and upper levels of dressed timber. Azzie marched up the steps
and swung the great bronze knocker.

"Who knocks?" came forth a voice from inside.

"One who requests knowledge," Azzie said.

The door was opened. Standing in the doorway was an elderly, white-haired
gentleman who wore a fine Roman tunic in spite of this garment having been out
of fashion for some hundreds of years. He was tall and stooped, and he walked
with the aid of a long cane.

The old gentleman said, "I believe it is Lord Azzie, is it not?"

"That is correct," Azzie said. "I've been told that my ser-vant, Frike, might
be found here."

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"Ah, of course, Frike," the old gentleman said. "Won't you come this way,
sir? By the way, I am Master Albertus."

He led the way into a gloomy interior, past a cluttered parlor, past an
unkempt kitchen and scullery, to a cheerful little drawing room in the back.

Frike was standing by the fireplace at the far end of the room. He smiled
when Azzie came in.

"Frike!" cried Azzie. "I thought you had deserted me."

"Nay, master," Frike said, "I would not dream of it. What happened was that
during your absence, I took myself to the village tavern in search of
companionship, and there to quaff the strong red wine that gives this region
its ferocious valor. There I met this gentleman, Messer Albertus, who is my
old master from the days when I was an apprentice in Salerno."

"Yes," Messer Albertus said, his eyes twinkling, "I know this rogue Frike
well enough, Lord Azzie. I was overjoyed to hear of his good luck in getting
into your employ. I brought him to my house to give him assistance in the
matter he is helping you with."

"What help exactly are you speaking of?" Azzie asked.

"Why, lord, it seems that you require a few first-rate body parts. And I
happen to have a particularly choice item in my laboratory."

"Are you a doctor?" Azzie inquired.

Albertus shook his white-tressed head. "I am an alchemist, my lord, and body
parts are often useful in my occupation. If you will come this way ..."

Azzie followed the aged gentleman, and was followed in turn by Frike. They
went down the hall to a barred door. Albertus unlocked it with a key carried
on a thong around his neck, and they followed him down winding flagstone
stairs to a well-made alchemist's laboratory in the cellar. There Albertus lit
an ancient oil lamp. By its glow, Azzie could see tables covered with alembics
and cysters, and on one wall, a chart of chakra locations from India. On the
bookcases that lined one side of the room there were mummified bits and pieces
of per-sons.

"A pretty place," Azzie commented. "My compliments, doctor! But these
specimens are very old. They may have an antiquarian value, but they are of no
interest to me."

"These are simply surplus items," Albertus said. "Now, look here and see what
I have."

He went to a small vat resting on a side table. From it Albertus lifted a
human head severed at the neck. The face was that of a young man, deathly
pale, but quite handsome, and this despite the fact that where eyes had been
there were now only reddened holes.

"How did he meet his fate?" Azzie asked. "And what happened to his eyes?"

"He had the bad fortune to lose them, my lord."

"Before or after his death?"

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"Before, but only moments before."

"Tell me about it."

"With pleasure," Albertus said. "This fellow's name was Phillipe, and he
lived in a village not far from here. Handsome indeed he was, far handsomer
than a young fellow had any right to be. Everything came easy for him, and the
more he got, the more he wanted, and the less satisfied he became. One day he
beheld Miranda, daughter of a wealthy man hereabouts. She was just fifteen at
this time, and beautiful as dawn upon the mountain. Delicate and pure she was,
and she had planned to live her life in utmost purity, aspiring only to do
good.

"Having seen her, Phillipe became inflamed of her, and though it is said he
was a coward, he aspired still to winning her. One day Phillipe climbed the
wall around her father's house and went into the churning room and spoke to
her. Miranda had been raised in isolation, and had never seen a man like this.
Everyone in her father's household was old except for her three brothers, and
they were away fighting in one war or another.

"Phillipe seduced her with sweet words and impassioned tales of his own
trials. Miranda was softhearted, and she was greatly moved to learn that he
was sickly and apt to live but a little while longer. A lie, so he thought,
but a prophecy as it turned out! He feigned a fainting spell, and she let him
put his arm around her to support himself. They touched. And so one thing led
to another.

"It is a tale often told, alas. In brief, he seduced her, and she ran away
with him, for he swore that he would take care of her. But when they came to
the first large city, Civalle in Provence, Phillipe abandoned her and went his
own way.

"Alone, Miranda had a desperate time of it until she became the model for the
painter Chodlos. She lived with him for some months as his mistress and they
seemed happy enough. Chodlos was a big bear of a man, but not strong despite
his size. He was always jolly, though too much given to drink. He painted his
famous Magdalene with Miranda as his model. He could have been truly great.
But before the year was out, he was dead, his head broken in a tavern brawl.

"Miranda was heartbroken, because she had loved the painter. Chodlos'
creditors took away all the furniture and his paintings, and turned Miranda
out of the apartment. She had no money and no place to go. Finally, as the
only alternative to starvation, she went to work in a brothel. But bad luck
was not through with her yet. One night a madman came to the brothel. No one
knows what transpired between him and Mi-randa; but before anyone could stop
him, he had put out her eyes, and then cut her throat.

"Hearing of this, her brothers, Ansel, Chor, and Hald, came to the city for
revenge. The madman was already dead, torn to pieces by a mob. The brothers
found Phillipe drinking in a tavern with a new light o' love. They bent him
back over a table, told him he would die as Miranda had died. Then they tore
his eyes out and cut his throat. That is the history of the head that you here
behold."

"It's actually a very nice head," Azzie said, lifting the head and looking
into its ruined eye sockets. "Now what I need is a matching female head. This
Miranda. A madman killed her, eh? Master Albertus, do you know what happened
to her body? And most especially, her head?"

"Alas, I know not," said Albertus.

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"You have helped me greatly," Azzie said. "Name your price for this head."

Chapter 1

"Master, look at this."

It was the fourth head Frike had broughtin that week. This one was a
dark-tressed lady who still looked pretty good, especially if you could repair
her nose, which the worms had gotten at.

"No, Frike, it won't do." Azzie sighed and turned away.

"But why, lord? She's perfect!"

"There's only one who could be considered perfect."

"Who is that, lord?"

"Frike, the perfect accompaniment to our Prince Charming will be Miranda, the
girl Phillipe seduced."

"But we do not know where she is!"

"Not yet." Azzie got up, prowled around restlessly for a moment. "But we will
find her."

"The head has probably gone moldy by now."

"You can never tell. If by some good fortune her face is not obliterated, she
will be my Princess Scarlet in the little charade I am preparing."

"But, lord, we have no clues as to its whereabouts."

"We'll start in Civalle, where she died. She's probably buried there."

"Master, it's a waste of time. You have little time left anyhow before the
contest, and there is much to do."

"Pack our horses, Frike. I am an artist in these matters. I must have
Miranda's head for my Princess."

"She had a gaudy history, master, but why this particular wench?"

"Don't you see, Frike? It makes my plan more elegant. We will bring these
lovers together again after death. Their conscious memories will be gone, of
course. But something will remain. Something that will help bring a fine
conclusion to my tale of Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet. We must find
her body and hope that the face is still all right. Go, ready the horses."

Frike packed the horses and they set out to Civalle in southern Provence. It
was late June and travel was easy and pleasant. Frike had hoped that Azzie
would transport them by super-natural means. Azzie said the distance was too
close to go to all the bother of setting up a travel spell and activating it.

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They arrived in Civalle, a pleasant southern city near Nice. From Albertus'
description it was easy to find the brothel where Miranda had been killed.
Azzie made inquiries of the madam and learned that her brothers had taken her
remains away, no one knew where. Azzie rewarded her well for the information
and asked if a garment of Miranda's remained. The madam found an old shift and
sold it to him for two gold soldi. Whether it was indeed the genuine article,
he could not be certain-yet.

When they left the brothel, Frike said, "What now, mas-ter?"

"You'll see in due course," Azzie replied.

He and Frike departed the town and passed into the forest. After a long while
they camped, making a dinner of cold meat pie and boiled leeks. Afterward, at
Azzie's instructions, Frike built a fire. When its flames finally leaped high,
Azzie removed a small vial from the chest in which he carried his magical
paraphernalia. He removed from it a single drop of dark liquid and let it fall
into the fire.

The flames flared even higher. Frike cringed back.

"Pay attention," Azzie ordered, "for this is educational. Perhaps you have
heard of the fabulous hunting dogs of the old gods? We have something better
nowadays."

As the flames subsided three large birds flew into the camp and landed near
Azzie. They were ravens, with small, sinister eyes.

"I hope all is well with you," Azzie said to them.

"We are well, Lord Demon," one of them replied.

"Meet my servant, Frike. Frike, meet the Morrigan. They are supernatural
Irish birds, and their names are Babd, Macha, and Nemain."

"Pleased to meet you," Frike said, remaining well back, for they looked upon
him with fierce appraisal.

"What can we do for your lordship?" Macha asked.

Azzie brought out Miranda's gown. "Find this woman," he said. "The one who
last wore this. She is dead, by the way."

Babd sniffed at the cloth. "You didn't have to tell us that," he said.

"I forgot the extent of your powers. Go, peerless ones. Find this woman for
me!"

When the ravens had flown away, Azzie said to Frike, "Let's make ourselves
comfortable. This may take a while, but they will find her."

"I never doubted it," Frike replied.

Azzie and Frike ate more cold meat pie and leeks. They discussed the weather
and the possible nature of the heavenly entry in the Millennial contest. The
day wore on. The brassy blue sky of Provence was a huge dome radiating
sunlight and heat. They ate more leeks.

After a long while a raven returned, announcing itself as Nemain. It circled

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twice, then settled upon Azzie's outthrust wrist.

"What did you find?" Azzie asked.

Nemain cocked his head, then, in a small voice, replied, "I believe we've
located the one you want."

"Where is she?"

The other two ravens fluttered down. One perched on Azzie's head, the other
on Frike's shoulder.

Macha, the eldest, said, "Yes, it's definitely the woman you want. The scent
is unmistakable."

"I suppose sheis dead?" Azzie asked.

"Of course she's dead," Macha said. "That's the way you wanted her, isn't it?
If not, you could always have her killed."

Azzie didn't bother explaining that there were rules against that sort of
thing. "Where will I find her?"

"Go a couple of leagues down this road and you'll come to a town. She'll be
in the second building on your left."

"Thanks, baleful bird," Azziereplied.

Macha nodded, then rose into the air. The others followed. In a moment they
were gone.

Azzie and Frike mounted and headed downroad, south. It was an old Roman road
that crossed southern Europe, headed toward the great fortress city of
Carcassonne, in better condition than many roads they had taken. They passed
along it in silence, and after a time they came to a fair-sized village. Azzie
sent Frike on ahead to locate accommodations while he tended to the matter of
Miranda's head.

He walked to the house the ravens had indicated. It was the largest in the
lane, and dark, with an unpleasant look to its little slit windows and
ill-thatched roof.

He knocked at the door. No answer. He tried the latch. It was not secured. He
walked into the main room.

It was dark inside, with only a little light showing through cracks in the
ceiling. There was a strong smell of wine.

His sense of danger kicked in, a moment too late. He plunged through a hole
in the floor and fell into the room below, landing heavily. When he sat up, he
found himself inside a bottle.

Chapter 2

It was a glass bottle with a wide neck, of a type not seen much in these
days, large enough to hold a medium-sized demon like Azzie. The fall had made

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him dizzy for a mo-ment, and he heard a noise above his head but didn't know
what it was until he looked up. Then he saw that the bottle had been stoppered
with a wooden plug. Azzie recovered his senses quickly. What was he doing in a
bottle, anyhow?

Peering through the green-tinged sides, Azzie saw that he was in a room
illuminated by many candles. There were three rough-looking men standing
around a little table, arguing.

Azzie tapped on the glass to get their attention.

They turned. One of them, the one with the ugliest fea-tures, came forward
and spoke to him. Since the bottle was stoppered, no sound came through. Azzie
indicated this by pointing to his own ear and shaking his head.

When the loutish fellow understood, he told the others. Once again their
argument raged, this time more furiously. Finally, they came to a decision.
The first man climbed up a ladder set alongside the bottle and loosened the
wooden plug slightly.

"You can hear now," he said, "but if you try anything, we'll push the plug in
tight and go away and leave you here forever."

Azzie made no move. He figured he had a decent chance of driving it out
before they could hammer it in securely. But he was interested in hearing what
they had to say.

"You came for the witch, didn't you?" the man said.

"It might be easier if I knew your names," Azzie said.

"This is Ansel, here is Chor, and I am Hald. We are brothers, and the dead
witch Miranda is our sister."

"Indeed," Azzie said. "Where is she?"

"We have her close by. We've preserved her with ice."

"Bought at great expense," his brother Ansel reminded him. "We must get back
the cost of the ice. And that's only the beginning."

"You're going too fast," Azzie said. "What makes you think this sister of
yours, whom you call a witch, is worth anything at all?"

"The doctor told us."

"What doctor is that?" Azzie asked.

"Old Dr. Parvenu. He is also our local alchemist. After that crazy fellow
killed Miranda and we brought her back, our first thought was to consult Dr.
Parvenu, who is an expert on these matters. This was after we had killed
Phillipe, of course."

"Yes, I know about her seducer, Phillipe," Azzie said. "What did Dr. Parvenu
tell you to do with your sister's body after she'd been murdered?"

"He advised on the entire affair-and he told us to keep her head."

"Why?"

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"He said that beauty like hers would surely tempt a demon!"

Azzie saw no need to enlighten these fellows as to what he intended to do
with Miranda's head. He felt quite at ease. Demons learn early how to cope
with the bottle trick, and these fellows didn't seem too clever. ...

"This crazy fellow who killed Miranda-who was he?"

"We heard only that his name was Armand. None of us ever saw him, because he
was dead by the time we reached the brothel. After the people found out what
he had done to Mi-randa, they were so incensed that they beat him to death and
tore his body into rags."

"And now you would sell your own sister's head?"

"Of course! She was a whore! What difference does it make what we do with her
head?"

"I guess I could give you a few pieces of gold for her," Azzie said. "Unless
her features are all battered and distorted."

"Not in the slightest!" Ansel said. "She looks as good now as she did while
she was alive. Better, perhaps, if you like the languid type."

"Before I buy," Azzie said, "I must see her."

"You shall. But from the bottle, of course!"

"Of course,"Azzie said. "Trot her out."

Ansel called to his brothers to bring out Miranda's head. Chor and Hald
scuttled to the back of the cellar. Soon they returned, bearing an object.
Before presenting it, Ansel wiped it with his shirt, to get off the ice
crystals.

Azzie saw that she was quite lovely, even in death. The long, sad lips were
slightly parted. Her ash-blond hair clung to her forehead. A drop of water
glistened on her cheek. . . .

Azzie knew at once that his instinct had been correct; she was indeed the one
he needed.

"So what do you think?" Ansel asked.

"She'll do," Azzie said. "Now let me out of here and we'll discuss the fee."

"How about granting us three wishes first?" Ansel asked.

"No," Azzie said.

"Just that? No?"

"That's right."

"No counteroffer?"

"Not while you have me in this bottle."

"But if we let you out, we won't have anything to threaten you with."

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"That's right," Azzie said.

Ansel and his brothers held a whispered conference. Ansel came back. "They
told me to tell you that we know an incan-tation that can make life very
difficult for you."

"Do you really?" Azzie said.

"Yes, we do. Really."

"Then incant away."

The three brothers began to chant.

"Excuse me, fellows," Azzie said, "but I think you have some of the words a
little wrong. You should say fantago, not fandrago. Subtle, but there it is.
Pronunciation is everything in the matter of magic spells."

"Come on," Ansel said. "Grant us a couple of wishes, what's it to you?"

"I know you think demons have all sorts of special powers," Azzie said. "But
that doesn't mean we have to use them."

"What if we don't release you? How would you like to spend years in a
bottle?"

Azzie smiled. "Have you ever wondered what happens when the demon and the
people who have captured him can't reach an agreement on his ransom? The old
stories don't tell about that, do they? Be sensible now. Don't you think I
have any friends? Sooner or later they'll see I'm missing and come looking for
me. When they find me here, your prisoner-well, perhaps you can imagine what
they might do."

Ansel thought about it and didn't like what he came up with. "But why should
they do anything to us? By the rules of magic, we are allowed to trap demons.
We caught you fair and square."

Azzie laughed. It was a horrible sound he had practiced for occasions such as
this.

"What do you poor fools know of the rules of magic, or for that matter, of
the laws that govern the conduct of creatures supernatural? You'd do better to
confine your dealings to human things. Once you get into the supernatural
area, you can never tell what might happen."

Ansel was trembling now, and his two brothers looked ready to flee. "Great
demon," he said, "I didn't mean to intrude. It's just that Dr. Parvenu said it
would be so simple. What do you want us to do now?"

"Unstop the bottle," Azzie said.

Ansel and his brothers tugged out the stopper.Azzie stepped out. He adjusted
his height so that he was about one and a half feet taller than Ansel, the
tallest of the three.

"Now then, my children," Azzie said. "The first thing to learn about dealing
with supernatural creatures is this - despite the folklore to the contrary,
they will get the better of you every time. So don't try to trick them or
cheat them. Note how you opened the bottle for me when actually I was
helpless."

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The brothers exchanged looks.

After a moment, Ansel asked, "You mean we actually had you at our mercy?"

"Indeed you did," Azzie replied.

"That you were a helpless prisoner?"

"That is correct."

"Sure fooled us," one of the others observed, nodding slowly.

Another round of glances was exchanged.

Ansel cleared his throat then. "You know," he said, "at your present size,
great demon, I don't see any way you could be gotten into that bottle. I
daresay your excellency couldn't even put yourself into it now if you wanted
to."

"But you'd like to see me try, is that it?"

"Not at all," Ansel said. "We are entirely at your orders. I just wish you
would show me that you can do it again."

"If I did," Azzie said, "would you play fair with me and not close the
stopper?"

"Yes, sir, that I would."

"Would you swear it?"

"On my immortal soul," Ansel said.

"And the other brothers?"

"We also swear," they said.

"Okay, then," Azzie said. "Watch this." He stepped into the bottle and
maneuvered so that he fit entirely inside. As soon as he was all the way in
the brothers put in the stopper.

Azzie looked out at them. "Okay, quit horsing around and unplug this bottle!"

The brothers chuckled; Ansel motioned to them. Chor and Hald took up a
flagstone from the floor, revealing a stone-lined well. From far below came
the sound of water.

"Take note, demon," Ansel said. "We'll push you, bottle and all, into the
well, and cover it up, and paint a skull and crossbones on it so people will
think it's poisoned. Fat chance your friends will have of finding you then."

"You broke your word," Azzie said.

"Well, what of it? Nothing much you can do about it, is there?"

"All I can do," Azzie said, "is tell you a story."

"Come on, let's get away from here," the two other brothers said. But Ansel
said, "No, let's hear him out. Then we can laugh and go away."

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Azzie said, "Bottles to contain demons have been in con-stant use for several
thousand years. Indeed, the first man to ever make a bottle - a Chinaman, by
the way - did so in order to trap one of us. The ancient Assyrians and
Hittites kept their demons in clay pots. Certain African tribes keep us in
tightly woven baskets. We are aware of this, and of how the customs for
trapping us vary from one part of the world to another. In Europe, demons
always wear these."

He held up his hand. On his forefinger, or foreclaw, there glistened a
brilliant diamond.

"And with it we do this." Azzie swung his arm in an arc, the point of the
diamond in contact with the greenish glass. Azzie swung a circle, then pushed
against the glass. The circle he had cut fell out. He stepped through.

Ansel, his face frozen with fear, said, "We were only kid-ding, boss. Isn't
that right, boys?"

"That's right," said Chor and Hald, both of them grinning from ear to ear,
sweat dripping from their rudimentary brows.

"Then you'll like this," Azzie said. He waved his fingers and muttered under
his breath. There was a flash of light and a puff of smoke. When it cleared, a
very small demon with horn-rim glasses became visible, sitting nearby, writing
some-thing with a quill pen, on a parchment.

"Silenus," Azzie said. "Record these three to my account and take them away.
They are self-damned."

Silenus nodded, waved his hand, and the three brothers vanished. A moment
later, Silenus vanished.

As Azzie remarked later to Frike, it was the easiest three souls he had ever
helped damn themselves, and with practically no urging on his part.

Chapter 3

Oh, master, it's so good to be home!" Frike said, throw-ing back the bolt of
the front door of the big mansion in Augsburg.

"Itis nice," Azzie said. "Brr." He rubbed his claws together. "It's chilly in
here! You must build a fire as soon as you put away the body parts."

Demons, despite or because of their long association with hellfire, enjoy a
roaring hearth.

"Yes, master. Where do they go?"

"In the cellar laboratory, of course."

Frike hurried out and unloaded the cart. On it, wrapped in various
ichor-soaked cloths, were a number of body parts; enough, if Azzie's
calculations proved correct, to make up two entire bodies, one male, the other
female, to be known thereafter as Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet.

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They began working on the bodies the next day. Frike proved to have a useful
hand with needle and thread. He put Charming together as neatly as a tailor
makes a suit. There were seams and stitch marks, of course, but Azzie told him
not to worry about them. Once the bodies were reanimated, they would lose
these stigmata of their rebirth.

Those were pleasant domestic evenings. Azzie would settle into a corner of
the lab with his copy ofKing Solomon's Secrets, which he had always meant to
read but never found the time for. Now it was very pleasant to sit in the lab
with its smells of fusel oil, kerosene, sulfur, ammonia, and permeating it
all, the rich, complex odors of scorched and putrid flesh; to sit there with
his book open on his knee glancing up every now and again to watch old Frike,
his hunchbacked shadow thrown monstrously against a wall by a low-set light,
bent over his work with a tiny steel needle.

The needle had been hammered out for him by the Ruud, smallest and most
cunning of the dwarves of central Europe. The thread was the finest silk from
Taprobane, so gossamer and transparent that it seemed as if the lips of the
gaping wound separating an arm from shoulder were adhering to each other by
some sort of physical magnetism, or by magic. But the onl0y magic in this case
was Frike's tiny needle, making its neat little holes and forming, bit by bit,
a whole man from the pile of body parts stacked neatly at his left side on a
bed of glacial ice.

Frike was a careful workman, but he did bear watching. More than once he put
feet where arms should be, either be-cause of dim-sightedness or some
perverted sense of humor. But when he joined the Princess' midsection to
Charming's head, Azzie decided that this was too much. "Stop that non-sense,"
he told Frike, "or I'll put you in a Pit where you can fuse gravel into rock
for a few centuries to teach you serious-ness."

"Sorry, master," Frike said, and worked with exactitude and propriety
thereafter.

And so the bodies took shape. Apart from the pending matter of appropriate
eyes, the only real problem was Princess Scarlet's mismatched hands. It was
not so important that they were of different sizes. But one was yellow and the
other white, and this could not be permitted. Azzie discarded the yellow one
and made a quick expedition to the Schnachtsburg Doctoring Center. There, in a
shop dedicated to necrophilious memora-bilia, he was fortunate enough to find
a pickpocket's hand for Princess Scarlet.

Soon after his return, Azzie received word from Supply that his castle was
ready for delivery to his coordinates in Transylvania. Azzie departed
immediately, flying across the Alps to the plain of Hungary. The land
stretched ahead of him, lushly green, tree-scattered. He found the exact spot
he had picked, which he remembered from the grove of tall purple trees that
bloomed there, the only ones of their kind in the world, trees whose existence
ended before modern science could declare them anomalous. Merioneth was there
waiting for him, a thin, ill-favored demon from Supply who wore pince-nez and
carried a scroll attached by brass studs to a well-smoothed piece of wood-the
progenitor of the clipboard.

"You Azzie Elbub?" Merioneth asked.

"Of course I am," Azzie said. "Why else would I be here?"

"You could have your reasons. Got some ID?"

Azzie showed the black credit card with his name engraved on it.

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"It doesn't have a picture," Merioneth noted, "but I'll ac-cept it all the
same. Okay, where do you want it?"

Azzie looked around. The site he had chosen was rolling countryside. He
looked it over critically.

"I want the castle right there," he said.

"Over there on that flat piece?"

"That's it. But first you must put down a glass mountain."

"I beg your pardon?" Merioneth said.

"I want a glass mountain. The enchanted castle must sit on top of it."

"You want the castle on top of a glass mountain?"

"Of course. That's where enchanted castles always stand."

"Usually, maybe even often, but not always. I can cite several traditional
tales - "

"This castle is going to stand on a glass mountain," Azzie said.

Merioneth took off his pince-nez, polished them on his gray fur, put them
back on. He opened his briefcase. It was made of well-tanned human skin, and
its clasps were yellowed teeth. Azzie admired it and decided to get one like
it when he had the time. Merioneth opened the case and shuffled through
papers. At last he selected a sheet and read it with pursed lips.

"This is your original work order," he said. "It says nothing here about a
mountain."

Azzie came over and read the work order. "It says here you will supply
standard landscaping."

"Standard landscaping does not include a mountain of glass. Why not have us
move in an existing mountain?"

"It has to be of glass," Azzie said. "As far as I know, there are no existing
mountains of glass."

"So why not take a dead volcano instead?" Merioneth said. "With lots of
obsidian?"

"It won't do," Azzie said. "Glass mountains have been a feature of folklore
since people began telling tales. Surely you have one somewhere in Supply?"

Merioneth pursed his lips and looked doubtful. "Maybe we do and maybe we
don't. The point is, it isn't on the work order."

"Can't we put it there now?"

"No, it's too late."

"Can't we get around that somehow?" Azzie asked.

"What do you mean?"

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"I'll pay the extra myself. Can I put it on the card?"

Merioneth shrugged again. "It's not a matter of that. The work order has
already been filled out and signed."

Azzie looked at it. He pointed. "You could write it in right there, just
above the signature. 'One glass mountain, and one enchanted forest.' "

"If my supervisor ever found out . . ."

"And I'll make it worth your while," Azzie said. He reached into a pocket
inside his cloak and took out a small satchel. It was here that he kept his
valuables. Here, in a chamois bag, he had the gemstones Rognir had invested
with him. He took out a handful and showed them to Merioneth.

"So?" Merioneth said.

"Yours," Azzie said, "if you write me in a glass mountain."

Merioneth looked at the jewels. "I could get into a lot of trouble over
this."

Azzie added a few more gems.

"I guess I can do it," Merioneth said, taking the stones. He bent over the
work order and scribbled, then looked up. "But an enchanted forest-that's
another matter."

"Enchanted forests are no big deal," Azzie pointed out.

"They're not rare, like glass mountains. Everywhere you go you find enchanted
forests."

"Until you need one in a hurry," Merioneth said, his gaze on Azzie's chamois
bag. "I suppose you want a road through it, too, huh?"

"Nothing fancy. A dirt track would be fine."

"And who's to survey it, eh? I'd need a surveyor. And a surveyor's services -
"

"I know, it isn't on the original work order." Azzie selected four more
stones and gave them to Merioneth. "Will that do?"

"That takes care of the forest and the basic landscaping. But you also want
it enchanted. Right?"

"That's what I told you. What good would it be if it weren't enchanted?"

"Don't get huffy withme," Merioneth said. "This forest is nothing to me. I'm
just trying to understand the order. What sort of enchantments did you have in
mind?"

"The usual stuff," Azzie said. "Animated flame trees will do nicely. There
are always plenty of them in stock."

"You're a horticulturist that you know that?" Merioneth said caustically.
"Fact is there are damn few flame trees avail-able at this time of year. And I
suppose you want them to have magic thorns?"

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"Of course."

"Magic thorns aren't standard."

A few more gems changed hands.

"Now, let's see," Merioneth said. "What exactly should these magical thorns
do?"

"The usual thing," Azzie said. "When a traveler passes who is not pure in
heart, or not in possession of the proper magical counterspells, they impale
him."

"I thought you'd want that! Impaling's extra!"

"Extra! What in hell are you talking about?"

"I got more to do than hang around here jawing with you," Merioneth said, and
unfolded his wings.

Azzie paid over a few more gems. The chamois bag was empty. He had gone
through Rognir's treasure in a surprisingly short time.

"I guess we're in agreement on basics now," Merioneth said. "There are a few
more refinements I can think of, stuff you might like, but it'd cost more."

"Never mind the refinements," Azzie said. "Just do what we've agreed upon.
And quickly, please! I have other matters to attend to."

Merioneth called up a work crew and the demons started building the forest.
They worked rapidly, thorough profession-als once they got moving. Some of the
younger demons were obviously unaccustomed to manual labor. But the
supervisors kept them up to the mark and things proceeded nicely.

As soon as the basic forest was in place, with the spells set up but not yet
activated, the head work-crew demon left an underling to put in the shrubs and
wildflowers and turned his attention to setting up the castle. Crews up in
Limbo threw down the building blocks with gusto, and the demons below cursed
and dodged and caught up the pieces and put them together. Piece by piece a
high structure of crenellated walls and pointed turrets rose into the air. It
was historically inac-curate but definitely of fairy-tale design. At this
stage there were a few small mix-ups. When it came time to dig the moat around
it, they found they lacked earth-moving equipment. A team of dragons was
summoned and bribed with an offering of maidens. After they had dined, the
dragons scooped out a fine moat, twenty feet wide, thirty feet deep. But of
course there was no water in it, and no one seemed to know who was in charge
of getting the water. Azzie finally solved the problem by ordering a weather
spell from Supply and calling up a brief but very heavy rain. This, plus the
water from the runoffs, did the trick nicely. A pair of swans added a touch of
class.

Soon the castle stood, tall and stately, a lofty collection of stone towers
in the midst of domed shapes. From the topmost towers bright banners floated
in the breeze. The place was unfurnished, of course, and extremely drafty,
because no one thinks of closing up the chinks and gaps in magical castles.
Azzie ordered furniture from Supply. There was a problem on how to light the
place. He decided upon magical lighting, since it was difficult to see
anything with oil lamps.

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At last it was all together. Azzie stood back a few hundred yards and
admired. It was a castle that Mad King Ludwig would have loved. It would do.

Azzie returned to the mansion to finish work on the principals. The bodies
looked fine now in their vats, all seams faded. The ichor and spells had done
their work to perfection. But the bodies had no intelligence as yet, since
that comes last, and they did some strange things as one part of the body or
another came to life. Azzie worked to stabilize them and, at last, had them
set up properly.

Then Frike pointed out that both creatures were still blind.

"You're right," Azzie said. "I was saving that for last."

He sat and remembered Ylith. Yes, he'd saved that for last.

Chapter 4

Azzie liked witches. He considered them a sort of per-manent dating pool
where a demon could always find a companion for a Saturday night. Back in
those days, Witches' Sabbaths were the primeval form of nightclub.

"Frike! Bring me chalk! Candles!"

Frike hurried to the pantry where the magic supplies were stored. There, in a
stout chest, he found the things Azzie needed. The candles were as thick as a
man's wrist, and they stood almost as high as Frike himself. He bundled five
of them under his arm, one for each point of the pentagram. The candles were
as hard as petrified flesh and slightly greasy to the touch. Frike brought
them and the chalk to the front room. Azzie moved the trestle table out of the
way. He had taken off his cloak and doublet. Long muscles gleamed under his
shirt as he tugged an extra suit of armor into a corner.

"I don't know why I keep all this junk around," Azzie said. "Give me the
chalk, Frike. I'll inscribe the figure myself."

Azzie bent low and, lump of chalk in his right hand, in-scribed a large
five-sided figure on the stone floor. A ruddy glow from the fireplace outlined
his figure, tinging it red, ac-centuating his foxlike look. Frike almost
expected to see Azzie's legs change into the furry red legs of a fox. But
despite his excitement, Azzie retained his human shape. He had worked on it
for a long time, since demons of experience take great pains to shape their
human forms to suit their self-ideals.

Frike watched as Azzie inscribed the Hebrew letters of power, then lighted
the candles.

"Ylith!" Azzie intoned, crossing his claws and genuflecting in a manner that
hurt Frike's eyes. "Come to me, Ylith!"

Frike could see the beginning of movement in the center of the pentagram. The
candles gave off coiled streamers of colored smoke. These danced up and down,
coalesced, gave off bright sparks, then settled into a solid shape.

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"Ylith!" he cried. But it was not. The being in the penta-gram was a woman,
but there all resemblance to the Ylith he remembered ceased. This was a short,
stout female with orange hair and a hooked nose. This female crossed her arms
and glared at Azzie.

"What do you want?" she asked severely. "I was just leav-ing for my coven
meeting when you conjured me. If I hadn't been caught by surprise, I would
have canceled your spell, which was wrongly cast anyhow."

"You're not Ylith, are you?" Azzie asked.

"I'm Mylith," the witch replied.

"From Athens?"

"Copenhagen."

"I'm dreadfully sorry," Azzie said. "I was trying to conjure up Ylith from
Athens. The Spirit Exchange must have gotten things mixed up."

Mylith sniffed, rubbed out one of Azzie's Hebrew char-acters, and scribbled
in another. "You had the wrong exchange. Now, if there is nothing more . . .
?"

"I'll be happy to conjure you back to your home," Azzie said. "I'll do it
myself," Mylith said. "No telling where your charm would land me!"

She made a gesture with both hands and vanished.

"That was embarrassing," Azzie remarked.

"I think it amazing," Frike said, "that you can conjure anything. My last
master, the demon Throdeus, was quite un-able to conjure at all on Saturdays."

"Why, do you suppose?" Azzie said.

"He had been an Orthodox rabbi before becoming a demon," Frike said.

Again he conjured. Again colored smokes coiled in the center of the
pentagram. But this time, when they coalesced, instead of a short, ugly
orange-haired witch standing in the pentagram, there was a tall, good-looking
black-haired witch in a silk shorty nightgown.

"Ylith!" Azzie cried.

"Who is it?" the witch asked, rubbing her eyes. "Azzie? Is it really you? My
dear, you should have sent a messenger first. I was sleeping."

"Is that a sleeping garment? " Azzie asked, for through and around the
peach-colored diaphanous garment he could see her plump and well-shaped
breasts and, by walking around her, get a look at her rosy bottom, too.

"Shorty nightgowns are the newest sensation in Byzan-tium," Ylith said. "I
don't suppose they will catch on in Europe. Not soon, anyhow." She stepped out
of the pentagram. "It is wonderful seeing you, Azzie, but I really need some
clothes."

"I've seen you in less than that," Azzie said.

"I know, but this is not one of those times. And your loutish servant is

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staring at me! I must have a wardrobe, Azzie!"

"And so you shall!" Azzie cried. "Frike!"

"Yes, master?"

"Get into the pentagram."

"Master, I really don't think - "

"Don't think. Just do it."

Grumbling, Frike hunched his way into the center of the pentagram.

"I'm sending you to Athens. Pick up all the lady's garments you can. I'll
bring you back in a few minutes."

Ylith said, "There's a fur-collared deep blue dress in the anteroom. It's the
one with three-quarter-length sleeves. Please be sure to bring that! And in
the little closet near the kitchen you'll find-"

"Ylith!" Azzie said. "We can bring more clothing later, if there proves to be
a need. Right now I'm in just the slightest hurry."

Raising his hands, Azzie recited a spell. Frike vanished in mid-grumble.

"Well now," Ylith said. "We are alone. Azzie, why didn't you call me sooner?
It's been centuries!"

"I was in the Pit. Lost track of time," he explained.

He escorted Ylith to the big couch that was pulled up to the fire. He brought
her wine and a plate of little cakes he knew she liked. They settled down onto
the couch, and Azzie em-ployed one of his minor music spells to call forth a
chorus of popular airs of the day. He sat down beside her and looked deep into
her eyes.

"Ylith," he said, "I have a problem."

"Tell me about it," Ylith said.

Azzie did, forgetting Frike for several hours, so earnest was his
explanation. When he finally conjured Frike back, it was dawn, and the servant
arrived yawning, draped in ladies' clothing.

Chapter 5

Azzie took Ylith to the lab where Charming and Scarlet, now entirely
assembled, lay side by side on marble slabs, veiled with two linen
tablecloths, since Azzie had often observed that people look better slightly
clad than not clad at all.

"They make a cute couple, don't they?" Azzie said.

Ylith sighed. Her long, mobile face was beautiful one mo-ment, sinister the
next. Azzie tried to adjust his perception so that he would see only her

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beautiful side, but it was difficult; witches have obscure feature cyclings.
Azzie had felt ambivalent about Ylith for a long time. Sometimes he thought he
loved her; sometimes he hated her. Sometimes he tried to solve the problem by
attacking it head-on; sometimes he preferred to forget it in favor of simpler
problems, such as how best to spread evil and further the general bad.
Sometimes - a lot of the time - he didn't know what to do. He loved her but he
didn't always like her. But she was also his best friend, and when he had a
problem he turned to her.

"They're real cute," Ylith agreed, "except for the lack of eyes. But you know
that."

"It's why I'm showing them to you," Azzie said. "I've already told you that
I'm going to enter them in the Millennial contest. They are going to act out
the Prince Charming tale, entirely on their own, no urging from me, utilizing
the famous free will that all intelligent creatures are said to possess. And
they are going to come to the wrong conclusion and condemn themselves forever.
But I need eyes for them, not just any eyes: special eyes. I need enchanted
eyes. I need them in order to give the story that special air, that flavor,
that fairy-tale savor- if you know what I mean."

"I understand perfectly, my dear," Ylith said. "And you want me to help? Oh,
Azzie, you are such a child! What gave you the idea that I would find eyes for
you?"

Azzie hadn't considered that. He scratched his scalp - scaly-that's what the
Pit did to you every time-and consid-ered. He said, "I thought you'd do it
because it's the right thing to do. I mean, you want evil to win as much as I
do, don't you? Consider if good rules human destiny for the next thousand
years: it could put you out of business."

"You have a point," Ylith said. "But it is not entirely persuasive. Why
should I help you? I do have a life of my own, and other business in progress.
I'm into administrative work for the coven, and I've been doing some teaching.
. . ."

Azzie took a mental breath, the kind he always took before embarking on one
of his really big lies. As he drew in that mental breath his genius and all
his faculties took heed and helped him into the role he knew was needed.

"Ylith," he said, "it's very simple. I love you."

"Oh, really!" she said, scornfully, but not closing off the conversation.
"That's rich! Tell me more!"

"I have always loved you," Azzie said.

"You sure acted like it, didn't you?" Ylith said.

"I can explain why I never called," Azzie said.

"I'll just bet!" Ylith said, waiting.

"There were two reasons," Azzie said, not knowing at the moment what they
were but saying there were two in case one wasn't enough.

"Yes? Let's hear them!"

"I've already told you I was in the Pit."

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"And you couldn't even send a postcard? I've heard that 'I was in the Pit'
excuse before!"

"Ylith, you must simply believe me. There are some things a man can't speak
about. But take my word for it, things came up. I could explain if there were
time, but the important thing is, I love you; the bad enchantment has ended at
last, and we can be together again, just as you have always wanted and as I
secretly have wanted, too, though I said otherwise."

"What enchantment?" Ylith said.

"Did I mention an enchantment?"

"You said, 'Now the bad enchantment has ended.' "

"I said that? You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!"

"Well, I shouldn't have," Azzie said. "One condition for ending the bad
enchantment was that I never speak about it. I just hope we haven't set it off
again."

"What bad enchantment?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Ylith drew herself up to her full height and glared at him. He was really the
most impossible demon. Demons are expected to lie, of course, but even the
worst would occasionally tell the truth. It's almost impossible not to tell
the truth sometimes, by accident. Except for Azzie. But that was not because
he had a lying heart. No, it was because he was trying so hard to be really
bad. She couldn't help but feel for him. He still appealed to her. And it was
not the amusing season in Athens.

"Promise you'll never leave me again," she said.

"I promise," Azzie said. Then, realizing that he had ca-pitulated too soon,
added, "Under normal conditions, that is."

"What do you mean, normal conditions?"

"Conditions that are not abnormal."

"Such as what?"

"How would I know?"

"Oh, Azzie!"

"You must take me as I am, Ylith," Azzie said. "It really is nice to see you.
Have you any ideas about those eyes?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have an idea or two."

"Be a doll and rush off and get them," Azzie said. "I'm running out of ichor
and I don't dare resurrect these creatures before I have eyes for them. It
might change their develop-ment."

"They'll have to wait," Ylith said. "Two special pairs of eyes aren't come by

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quite as fast as all that."

"We will all await you, my queen!" Azzie said.

Ylith gave a raucous laugh, but he could tell she liked to hear that stuff.
Azzie waved, Ylith twirled, turned into a rotating column of violet smoke, and
then disappeared entirely.

Chapter 6

She had been content for many years to hang around in Athens, enjoying
parties and good times, having many lovers, and redecorating her house.
Witches grow lazy with the passing of time, and tend to rest upon their
lau-rels. The sins that witches try to make people commit turn up later to
haunt them. They lose their knowledge bit by bit, for-getting what they
studied in the great witch schools. Ylith had been vegetating for a long
while, before she was called up by Azzie.

Her reaction now was surprise at herself for volunteering to find eyes for
the young couple. Was this really what she wanted to do? Did she love Azzie so
much? Or was it more a matter of trying to find a duty to perform, to serve
something greater than herself? Either way, she felt the need for advice when
it came to the second pair of eyes.

And when it came to wise advice, the sagest counsel she knew was that of
Skander. . . .

Dragons live a long time, and smart dragons not only live a very long time,
but also change their names from time to time so that people don't get wise to
just how long they're living and get jealous. There's nothing a hero likes to
kill more than a really old dragon. The years on a dragon are like the rack on
a buck.

Skander and other dragons became aware of how many heroes were hunting for
them, and they grew more and more cautious. Gone were the old days, when they
hung around and guarded treasure and took on anyone who came along. The
dragons were doing very well at that game, too, although all you hear about
are hero victories. There were plenty of dragon victories, but there were only
a few dragons and an endless supply of heroes. The heroes kept coming, until
the dragons got wise to the whole game.

There was a big conference held, at which many views were heard. The Chinese
dragons were the most numerous at that time, but they were so jealous of their
wisdom and so determined that no other dragon would get it, that all they
said, when their advice was asked, were things such as, "It furthers one to
see the great man." "You will cross the water." "The superior man is like
sand." And the Chinese philosophers, who had a taste for obscurity, collected
these into books, which they sold to Westerners in search of wisdom.

The final decision at the conference was to bow to neces-sity, give up some
of the more aggressive tactics, which had given dragons bad repute, and
maintain a low profile. Dragons voted universally to give up their time-old
pursuits of Hoarding and Guarding in favor of the new disciplines of Ducking
and Dodging. Don't just stand around guarding treasure, they an-nounced to
each other. Fade into the landscape, live at the bottoms of rivers - for many
dragons were able to live under-water- gilled dragons, they were called, that

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fed on sharks and killer whales and mahimahi. The land dragons had to adopt a
different strategy. Land-based dragons learned to conceal them-selves as small
mountains, hills, even as clumps of trees. They gave up their old habits of
ferocity, contenting themselves with an occasional hunter who strayed into
their territory. Once in a while a dragon went back to the old practices, and
eventually got hunted down and killed. That dragon's name would go down in the
Dragon Hall of Heroes, and the rest would be advised not to act like him.

Skander was old even by dragon standards. He was there-fore super wily and
stayed out of trouble. He lived in central Asia, somewhere near Samarkand, but
he had been around since before the city was founded. You could have searched
for ages and not found Skander if he didn't want to be found. But if you did
find him he was often a helpful dragon, and he had a vast store of lore. He
was also quirky, however, and given to mood swings.

Ylith knew this, but she had to make the attempt. She picked up a bundle of
powerbrooms, the sort you can fly on. These were the witches' greatest
accomplishment. They ran on spells, which the Witches' Sisterhood put together
at their head-quarters in Byzantium. The power of spells ran in cycles, some
years good, others not so good. Spells were subject to natural forces, but
these were not clearly understood, and there were occasional recalls.

The logical starting place, it seemed to her, was the place she had met
Skander last time: Dragon Rock. Dragons are clever enough to know that men
will never search for a dragon at a place called Dragon Rock.

Many heroes had ridden through the area, most of them bearing only the light
curved sword of the region, which would do no good against a dragon anyway.
Not that Skander cared to try issues even with these lightweights. Skander's
hide with its overlapping scales was able to withstand the blow of an
avalanche, and he thought nothing of swords unless they were backed up with
really powerful spells. But humans were sneaky; they'd seem to be aiming at a
shoulder, and then,pow, you'd get an arrow in the eye. Somehow dragons,
despite their ex-treme intelligence and centuries of experience, were prone to
getting arrows in the eye. They never fully caught on to the trick that men
used, of pretending to shoot in one direction and then actually shooting in
another. It wasn't according to dragon practice, and went against their idea
of a warrior's ethics.

For whatever reason, Ylith had met Skander at Dragon Rock, where she had been
visiting relatives who had recently moved to the area from Scythia. Skander at
that time had been taking advantage of a rare shape-changing spell that had
come his way. Dragons are always in search of shape-changing spells because,
being intelligent, they aspire to appear in human so-ciety. Although humans
don't know it, dragons in altered shapes have been present in many of the
courts of the world, where they love to argue with philosophers. More often,
though, drag-ons simply get tired of all the years alone, all the more alone
since dragons of either sex are suspicious of dragons of the opposite sex. It
is for this reason, not for lack of opportunity or lustiness, that dragons
rarely mate, and it is even more rare that they have young. Among the dragons
who do have young, there's no agreed-upon rule as to which parent is to bring
up the children. There's not even consensus on who bears them. The dragons did
away with most of that instinctual stuff ages ago. Creatures of reason now,
they fought over these matters among themselves. It is said that in the
settling of these argu-ments, much of the race of dragons was wiped out.

And heroes had a field day against dragons in their con-fusion. It amazed
dragons to think that knights-beefy guys in metal suits-could kill them, since

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the humans were so ob-viously unintelligent and had only their court rituals
going for them. But the humans were winning because they were single-minded
about killing, while the dragons were single-minded about nothing at all.

Ylith flew to the Samarkand region and made inquiry in the town of Yar Digi,
the nearest village to Dragon Rock. It was a low, miserable place, and there
was nothing on its one street but souvenir shops. These were filled with
dragon lore, but there were no customers. When Ylith asked about this, a
bookstore owner named Achmed told her, "It is because the long-awaited boom in
dragon lore has not yet come to pass. Other places are getting all the
attention. In Britain, for ex-ample, where no dragons have stirred for
centuries, they run guided tours of where they used to be, and outsell us a
hundred to one. Where is the dragon? Somewhere up the trail over in his cave
at Dragon Rock. But no one ever seems able to find it unless the dragon wants
visitors. And you never know about that. He's quirky."

Ylith went in the direction indicated and, after paying her entrance fee, was
allowed onto the path. Moving along it, she rounded a number of turns, passed
a small refreshment stand, passed Dragon Rock itself. Nothing resembling a
cave was apparent at either hand.

It was not until she heard a deep, resonant chuckle that she halted.

"Skander?" she called.

The sound came again.

"It's me, Ylith."

Suddenly she became aware of a shadowy place between two boulders which might
be more than shadow. Moving to it, she saw that it continued back into a
greater darkness. She entered there.

At what point she passed within the greater darkness of the hillside she
could not be certain. Yet, after a time, the echoing of her footfalls
convinced her that she was entirely indoors.

"Skander?" she repeated.

There was still no reply, but she became aware of a faint illumination ahead
and to the right. Following it around a bend, she entered an area where the
stone itself seemed to glow- overhead and at either hand. With this
visibility, she increased her pace. The passage branched several times, and in
each instance she followed the path of greater brightness.

At length, she came to a chamber where the dark, scaled form she sought
reclined, staring at her. Save for the eyes, she might have missed him in the
stillness. She halted upon the threshold, uneasy.

"Skander. It's me. Ylith," she said.

He cocked his head and lowered his eyelids slightly.

"Yes. It is, isn't it?" he observed. "How long has it been?"

"Long. What are you doing?"

"I was dreaming of the Renaissance."

"What is a Renaissance?"

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"I'm sorry, I'm getting my centuries mixed up," he replied. "The Renaissance
comes later. That's the trouble with being prescient. You can never tell then
from now."

"Skander," Ylith said, "I need help."

"Just as I thought," the dragon said. "What else would bring you out to this
remote place? What is it you want, my dear? The old flames are still plenty
hot. Want me to burn someone up for you?"

"I need eyes," Ylith said, and explained about Azzie and Prince Charming and
Princess Scarlet.

"Eyes," Skander murmured, and his hide, normally a red-dish brown, turned
pasty white. There was a prophecy she had suddenly brought to mind.

"Why do you stay in this place?" Ylith asked.

"It's the quest for fame, you see," Skander said. "The people here are going
to publicize me. I promised to put this place on the map. It hasn't happened
yet but it's bound to come."

"Where can I get some really good eyes?" Ylith asked.

"Eyes," Skander mused. "Why, there are eyes everywhere. Why do you bother
asking me?"

"You know where the best ones are. All dragons do."

"Yes, of course," Skander said. "But I'd really rather not discuss eyes, if
you don't mind."

"You don't want to discuss eyes?"

"Just superstitious, I guess. Sorry."

"Care to tell me about it?"

"All right," he said. "Long ago, in China, I saw that when-ever the court
artist painted dragons he always put in the eyes last. When I asked him of
this, he told me that this act gave the painting a special sort of life, and
it wouldn't do to summon this life until everything else was done. A wise man
had told him that the eyes of my kind are the focus of the spirit. They hold
the life, they are the last things to go. I looked up that wise man then-an
old Taoist monk-and he assured me that this was true. He also prophesied that
a witch asking after eyes in my presence represented a total reversal of Yin
and Yang."

"What does that mean?"

"Rosebud . . ." he answered, and closed his eyes.

She waited, but he did not continue. After a time, she cleared her throat.

"Uh, Skander? What then?"

There was no reply.

"You asleep, Skander?"

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Silence.

Finally, she moved forward and held her hand before his nostrils. She could
feel no breath. Moving even nearer, she placed her hand between the scales of
his breast. There was no heartbeat.

"Oh dear!" she said. "What now?"

But she already knew.

When she had done, she stroked the dead dragon's nose, a thing it had loved
feeling in life. Poor old dragon! she thought. So old and wise, yet reduced to
this, a mound of cooling flesh in a mountain cave.

She knew that it would be evening soon, and that was not a good time to be
about in a foreign country. Local demons were apt to be abroad, and they could
cause some rare mischief if they were of a mind to. There was no love lost
between European and Asiatic demons in those days, and the wars be-tween the
two still awaits their chronicler.

The eyes she wrapped in a small silk handkerchief, then placed in a casket of
rosewood which she kept on hand for the transport of delicate and precious
objects. Then she turned and departed the cave.

Ylith stood tall as the light of the falling sun bounced off the ice peaks of
the highest mountains. She shook out her glorious black flag of hair, mounted
her powerbroom, and soared away into the west, the land of the dragon
dwindling beneath her.

Chapter 7

It was still daylight when Ylith arrived in Augsburg, for, with a favorable
tail wind, she had managed to outrace the sun itself. She came down near the
front door of Azzie's mansion and banged hard with the big brass knocker.
"Azzie! I'm back! I've got them!"

A cavernous silence followed. Although itwas a summer afternoon, there was a
chill in the air. Ylith felt faintly uneasy. Her witch's sense warned her that
something was amiss. She touched the protective amulet of amber she wore
around her neck. She knocked again.

At last the door was opened. Frike stood there, meager face screwed into an
expression of grief.

"Frike! What is the matter!"

"Alas, mistress! Things have gone very wrong indeed!"

"Where is Azzie?"

"That, milady, is what has gone most wrong. He is not here."

"Not here? But where could he be?"

"I do not know," Frike said, "but it wasn't my fault!"

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"Tell me what happened."

"A few hours ago," Frike said, "the master was preparing a solution to wash
the hair of Princess Scarlet, since it had become dirty and tangled. He had
finished it, and I was drying the lady's hair. I recollect it was somewhat
past the noon hour, for the sun was full and high when I went out to gather
fire-wood- "

"Get on with it," Ylith said. "What happened?"

"I came in with the firewood and Master Azzie was hum-ming a merry tune as he
clipped Prince Charming's finger-nails-he always takes great care with
details, you know. All of a sudden he stopped humming and looked about. I
looked, too, though I had heard no sound. Master Azzie looked entirely around
him, and when his gaze rested on me again, I could swear he was a changed
demon. Some of the fire had gone out of his hair, and he had grown pale. I
said to him, 'Did you hear something, master?' and he said, 'Yes, a keening
sound, and it will bring me no good. Quick, fetch me my Master Spell Book.'
And so saying, he slumped to his knees. I rushed to do his bidding. He had not
the strength to open the book -it is that very large brass-bound one you see
on the floor near your feet. He said to me, 'Frike, help me turn the pages.
Some cunning trick of weakness is undemoning me.' I assisted him, and he said,
'Faster, Frike, faster, before the heart goes out of me entirely.' And so I
turned the pages faster, doing it all myself now since the master's hand had
fallen away and it was all he could do to keep his eye, which had lost its
usual luster, focused upon the page. And then he said, 'Right, stop there. Now
let me see. . . . ' And that was all."

"All?" said Ylith. "What do you mean, all?"

"All that he said, mistress."

"I understand that well enough. But what happened?"

"He vanished, Mistress Ylith."

"Vanished?" Ylith said.

"Before my very eyes, he vanished entirely out of sight. I was beside myself,
knowing not what to do. He had left no instructions. So I went into hysterics
for a time, then decided it best simply to await your arrival."

"Describe to me the manner of his vanishing," Ylith said.

"The manner?" Frike asked.

"Yes. Was it a smoke vanishment, in which he dwindled quickly to nothing? Or
was it a flash vanishment, in which he disappeared with perhaps a small clap
of thunder? Or did he shrink down to the size of a point first?"

"I know not, mistress. I shut my eyes."

"Shut your eyes! You are a fool, Frike!"

"Ah, mistress, but I peeked."

"And what did your peek tell you?"

"I saw the master become very thin and slide off sidewise."

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"Which side?"

"The right side, mistress."

"Did he slide away smoothly or with a sort of up-and-down motion?"

"With motion."

"This is very important, Frike. Did he at any time change color before
vanishing completely?"

"You've got it, Mistress Ylith! He changed color indeed, just before he slid
away into nothingness!"

"What color did he change into?"

"Blue, milady."

"It is as I thought," Ylith said. "Now let us look at his conjuring book."

Frike lifted the heavy volume to a lectern where Ylith could read it more
easily. It was still turned to the page Azzie had regarded just before his
disappearance. Ylith bent over it and quickly translated the runes.

"What is it?" Frike asked.

"It is a General Unbinding, Frike," she told him. "This is the spell that
demons use when something or someone is trying to conjure them. It is called
the Grand Counterveillance."

"Was he too late?"

"Obviously."

"Conjured!" said Frike. "But the master is a conjurer him-self!"

"Of course he is," Ylith said, "and a very good one. But all who conjure,
Frike, are subject themselves to conjuration. It is one of the great laws of
the Unseen Realm."

"So I have heard," Frike said. "But who could conjure the master away like
that?"

"There are many possibilities," Ylith said. "But given the sequence of
events, it is most likely that it was some mortal- a witch perhaps-or an
alchemist, or some other demon-who had a hold of some sort over Azzie, and
thus was able to call him away without his consent."

"But when will we see him again?" Frike asked.

"I have no idea," Ylith said. "It depends on who did the conjuration, the
spell used, and the nature of the obligation that Azzie had incurred."

"But will he be back soon?"

Ylith shrugged. "He could be back in an instant. Or he could be gone for
days, months, years, even forever. It is dif-ficult to unravel the truth of
these matters a posteriori."

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"I'd be glad to sacrifice my posterior if it would bring him back!" cried
Frike. He wrung his hands in grief and uncertainty, and then a thought crossed
the shadowy places of his mind and he called out afresh, "Oh, no!"

"What is it?" Ylith asked.

"The bodies!"

"What about them?"

"They run peril of decaying, lady! For only this morning we used up our last
bit of ice, and we're very low on ichor. I reminded the master of this as soon
as he arose, and he said, 'Never fear, Frike, I'll call Supply and get some
more as soon as I've had my nap.' "

"Nap? But you said he had just arisen."

"He liked a nap soon upon awakening, mistress."

"Now that you mention it, I remember it well," Ylith said.

She went to the part of the laboratory where the bodies slept in their
coffin-shaped open boxes, side by side, awaiting resuscitation. The ice of the
high Alps was gone. In the bottom of each box was no more than a little pool
of ichor.

"Your master has been very slack," Ylith said.

"He had not expected to be conjured, mistress," Frike said.

"I suppose not. Well, first things first. We must refrigerate these bodies,
Frike."

"Beg pardon, mistress?"

"We must find a means of lowering their temperature."

"Can you call up glacial ice, mistress?"

"Not I," said Ylith. "Witches' conjurations do not lean to that sort of
thing. Fetching things is demons' work. But our demon has been taken from us.
This is a tricky situation." She crossed to the couch and sat down. "Stop
whimpering, Frike, and let me think."

She returned to the boxes, bent over, and touched the bodies. They were still
perceptibly cold, but Ylith could tell that they were warmer than they ought
to be. Another hour or two and Azzie's prize specimens would be rotten meat,
probably filled with blowflies. And then it wouldn't matter if he came back or
not. The contest would be over.

"I'm going to do something about those bodies, Frike," she said. "I'm going
to talk to some people. You had better not watch me depart. This is women's
magic, not for men's eyes."

"I'll be in the den when you need me," Frike said, slinking away. Ylith
turned to her work.

Chapter 8

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Ylith selected a freshly charged broomstick and, first making sure her
protective amulets were in place, flew out of the mansion window and
up, straight up, into the empyrean blue of the highest atmosphere. As she
went she murmured a protective spell to herself, for she was unhappy over what
she was about to do. Still, to keep those bodies cold, her first thought had
been to ask assistance of the Harpies.

Harpies and witches were friendly toward one another. The Harpies were female
demons inducted into the Powers of Darkness after the collapse of classical
mythology. Not only did they do evil, but their very presence was disturbing.
Their breath was foul, and their table manners disgusting. But it was to the
Harpies that Ylith had decided to go, because, although they were foul, they
were quick-witted. There were many other demonic deities she could have called
upon, but only the Har-pies and their sisters, the Sirens, could be counted
upon to understand at once what was desired, and sufficiently honorable to
follow through on what they promised.

She flew hard and fast, soon passing through the crack that separates the
realms of the human from that of the inhuman and superhuman.

Immediately she found herself in a vast cloudland of snowy hills and
mountains. And there were rivers, too, and little tem-ples along the
riverbanks, all made of clouds. She flew on and, dipping low over this land,
saw the manticore and the chimaera and, in a little valley of its own,
Behemoth snorted and reached for her with a great talon. She eluded the beast
easily and flew on, to a region where the clouds were colored blue, and
every-thing below was stained with blue and gold, like the borders of a dimly
remembered dream. Descending, she saw, very tiny at first, the figures of
beautiful women on the banks of a sleepy river, and close to them, a waterfall
where they could sport and slide.

Then Ylith directed her flight downward and came to one of the regions where
the Harpies and the Sirens lived together. She slowed and came to a stop on
the left bank of the river. This was the Styx, the great river that traveled
from deepest past to furthest future. There were trees along it of no known
variety, for they still awaited their birth on the earth. Beneath these trees
were maidens, lolling at their ease on the grassy banks. There were eight of
them, Sirens, and several Harpies. The Sirens were famed for luring people,
especially sailors, to their doom with their sweet songs. The Harpies were the
more advanced stage of Siren, beautiful and golden-haired, with firm,
well-shaped breasts, but with table manners that would make a hyena blush.
They were in charge of tormenting damned souls of a classical sort, by
snatching food from their mouths and splattering them all over with fiery
excrement.

Although Ylith put on a bold front, she was more than a little afraid, as
these ancient demons were given to odd per-versions and strange thoughts, and
their mood was always un-certain.

But she put on a bold face and said, "Sisters, I bring you greetings from the
world of humans."

One of the Sirens stirred herself. She was large, ash blond, and had a sweet
little rosebud of a mouth. It was difficult to believe that this was Poldarge,
one of the most ominous of the Chthonian women deities.

"What do we care for the world of humans?" Poldarge said. "The banks of this

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fine river are our home. Here we entertain each other by singing of fine
exploits of the past. And, from time to time, a man falls into our hands,
having escaped over the side of Charon's boat. Then we get him from the river
deities, and we play with him until he goes mad, and then we eat him, each of
us tearing off her share."

"I thought," Ylith said, "that you might care for some diversion, as long as
it is in good cause. Because, excellent though this riverbank is, you must
sometimes miss the world of humans, where fine deeds can be done."

"What do we care about human deeds?" Poldarge asked. "But go on, sister. Tell
us what you want."

And Ylith told them about the great Millennial contest, and about Azzie, and
about how he was going to enter the lists against the Powers of Good by
utilizing two human creatures, resuscitated and set into an inverted fairy
tale of ominous im-port. The Sirens and Harpies applauded. The very thought of
the next thousand years being consecrated to evil gave them goose bumps of
pleasure.

"I am glad you approve," Ylith said. "But there is a prob-lem. Azzie has
disappeared, conjured up by someone."

"Now, sister," Poldarge said, "you know we can do nothing about that. We are
forbidden to interfere in the affairs of men or demons, except under certain
conditions, which are not met here."

"I do not ask you to findAzzie," Ylith said. "I'll do that myself. But it
will take time. And meanwhile his actors, those who will play Prince Charming
and Princess Scarlet, remain in their coffins unanimated. And since the
glacial ice has run out and the ichor is nearly gone, and Azzie not at hand to
call up more, they run the risk of decaying in the warmth of Earth's
springtime and thus rendering Azzie's grand scheme inoper-able."

"That's sad, no doubt," Poldarge said. "But why tell us? We have no glacial
ice here."

"Of course not," Ylith said. "But you are beings of the air, well accustomed
to towing helpless creatures from Earth to their damnation."

"True. But what has this to do with your Prince and Prin-cess?"

"I thought," Ylith said, "that you might lend a hand in the preserving of
their bodies. It is cold that is needed, the cold of the upper reaches of the
atmosphere."

The Harpies conferred among themselves. Then Poldarge said, "Very well,
sister, we will take care of these bodies for you. Where did you say they
were?"

"In the mansion of the demon, in Augsburg. The way to find it-"

"Don't worry," Poldarge said. "Harpies can find any place on Earth. Sisters,
come with me!"

Poldarge spread her dark wings and sped into the upper atmosphere. Two more
Harpies followed.

Ylith watched them go. Harpies were known to get easily bored. She had no
assurance they wouldn't abandon their charges, and return to the river and

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their eternal mah-jongg game. But they had a tradition of honor among peers.
She just hoped they felt her a member of that select group.

Ylith went aloft now. She had an idea where Azzie might be.

Chapter 9

When the Harpies went off to carry back the bodies, no one had thought to
notify Frike. The first thing he learned of the new arrangement occurred when
a pair of Harpies burst through the window. He was sitting on a low stool in
Azzie's laboratory, listening to the drip-drip of melting ice and waiting for
Ylith to return. Suddenly there was a great fluttering and a bad smell.

For the purpose of efficient flight the Harpies had retracted their legs, so
their wide, brazen wings supported only a trunk with prominent breasts and a
head. They cawed in loud grating voices and voided themselves over everything.

Frike yelped and ducked under the table. The Harpies spun around the room,
buzzing and shrieking. When they spot-ted the coffins, they flapped over to
them. "Stay away, you wretches!" Frike shouted. He went after them with a set
of fire tongs. The Harpies turned and attacked him, driving him from the
chamber with their steel-tipped wings and green-tipped nails. Frike hurried
after a bow and arrow. Before he could fetch them, the Harpies had lifted the
Prince and Princess and, flapping heavily now, rose into the air. Frike at
last located the weapons and hurried back. But the Harpies were gone, risen
high into the sky, and vanishing into the crack between the real and the
unreal. Frike shook his fist and then sat down. He hoped Azzie wouldn't ask
him to explain too much. He had very little idea what had happened.

But for that matter, where was the master?

Chapter 10

Azzie had been working in his laboratory when he felt the familiar psychic
tug which tells you that you are being conjured. It is a sort of pull that
starts from the inside of your stomach. Not unpleasant, but always an
unwelcome signal of what lies ahead. It would be all right, perhaps, to be
conjured when you were just sitting around without anything much to do. But
people tend to call you up just when you are most heavily engaged in something
delicate.

"Damnation!" he said. Everything was off schedule, and there was no way of
telling how long the castle would stand unattended, its obsolescent spells
running down. And his young people, the Prince and Princess, had to be
animated as soon as possible, before they could deteriorate.

And here he was flying through the air, unable to recite his counterveillance
in time to prevent what was happening. Not that it necessarily would. These
general spells often fail in specific situations.

Azzie passed out during this transition. When he re-covered, he had an ache
in his head. He tried to stand up, but he seemed to be on some slippery

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surface. Every time he rose, he fell down again. He was also a little sick to
his stomach.

He was lying inside a pentagram. You can't get any more conjured than that.

This was not the first time he had been conjured, of course. Every demon who
wishes to lead an active life among mankind must become accustomed to being
conjured many times, since mankind plays tricks on demons just as demons do on
people. There never has been a time when men and women did not conjure up
demons. There are many folktales to that effect, telling of the triumphs and
failures of the humans who have trod such a path. What is not told is how
often sensible ar-rangements are arrived at, since even souls are commodities
that can be purchased fairly. It is an ancient arrangement: the demon
furnishing various kinds of work in return for a soul. Kings are good favor
granters and many of them have had demon servants. But it is not a one-sided
situation. Many de-mons have had kings as servants.

"See, Father, I told you he'd come!"

That was the voice of Brigitte. A triumphant voice. And there she was
standing in front and above him, a dirty-faced little girl who had used the
promise she had wrung from him to call him up now.

"Looks like you did, all right," a man's heavy voice said. It was her father,
Thomas Scrivener. The fellow seemed to have regained his senses. But, of
course, he lacked his memory of the Pit and of his meeting with Azzie. Azzie
was thankful for that. Once humans got too much knowledge, they became
dan-gerous.

"Oh, it's you," Azzie said, remembering the little girl who had caught him
with a spirit-catcher back when he was shep-herding her father. "What do you
want?"

"My promise!" Brigitte said.

Yes, it was true; Azzie owed her a promise. He would have dearly loved to
forget it. But the world of magic registers promises between humans and
supernatural creatures as facts of physical import. It was impossible for
Azzie not to deal with this.

"Well," Azzie said, "open one of the sides of the pentagram and let me come
out and we'll discuss it."

Brigitte leaned forward to rub out a line, but her father seized her and
pulled her back. "Don't let him out! You'll lose all power over him!"

Azzie shrugged. It had been worth a try. "Master Scriv-ener," he said, "tell
your little girl to be reasonable. We can clear this up quickly and I can be
on my way."

"Don't listen to him!" Scrivener said to his daughter. "De-mons are rich. You
can ask for anything you want! Anything at all!"

"I'd better explain about that," Azzie said. "That is the popular
superstition, but I can assure you it is not true. Demons can only fulfill
wishes within their individual powers. Only a very high demon, for example,
could grant you great wealth. I, however, am a poor demon working on a
government grant."

"I'd like a new doll," Brigitte said to her father. Azzie tensed and leaned

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forward. It didn't quite constitute a wish, since it hadn't been directed to
him. But if she would say it again . . .

"A doll, Brigitte?" he asked. "I can get you the most won-derful doll in the
world. You've heard of the Queen of the North, haven't you? She has a special
little toy house with tiny figures that do the work, and pet mice that run in
and out, and other things besides, I don't quite remember what. Shall I fetch
it for you?"

"Wait!" Scrivener shouted, still drawing Brigitte back. "He's trying to cheat
us, daughter. This demon has wonders at his fingertips. He can make you rich,
can make you a princess-"

"No, nothing like that," Azzie said.

"Ask for something big!" Scrivener said. "Or better yet, give your wish to
me, and I'll wish for enough to make us both rich, and then I'll get you all
the dollhouses you could ever dream of."

"Will I still have to clean up after meals?" Brigitte asked.

"No, we'll hire a servant," Scrivener said.

"And will I have to milk the cows and feed the chickens and the rest of the
household chores?"

"Of course not!" Scrivener said.

"Don't trust him, Brigitte!" Azzie warned. "I'll tell you what would be
better. Just ask me to bring you something nice and I'll surprise you. What
about that, eh?"

"Don't listen to him," Scrivener said. "You must wish for a large estate at
the very least."

"Don't listen to him," Azzie said. "He always bullies you, doesn't he? But I
remember when he was mighty glad to have my help."

"What are you talking about?" Scrivener asked. "I never saw you before."

"That's what you think," Azzie said. "Brigitte, what color do you want your
dollhouse?"

"Where did we meet?" Scrivener asked.

"What I really want," Brigitte said, "is - "

"Wait!" Scrivener cried. "If you ask for something insig-nificant, I'll tan
your hide, young lady."

"I wish you'd stop shouting at me!" Brigitte cried.

"I can take care of that for you," Azzie said, and made a gesture.

Thomas Scrivener opened his mouth but no words came out. He strained, his
tongue waggled, his cheeks puffed in and out, but he could form no sound.

"What have you done?" Brigitte asked.

"Fulfilled your wish," Azzie said. "He'll not shout at you again. You or

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anyone."

"That wasn't fair!" Brigitte said. "I was talking to my daddy, not to you!
You still owe me a wish!"

"Come on, Brigitte," Azzie said. "Make a wish, then. I have to get out of
here."

Thomas Scrivener tried to speak. His face was purple, and his eyes bulged
like hard-boiled eggs. He was one hell of a looking sight, and Brigitte
started to laugh, then stopped ab-ruptly. Something had appeared in the air.

It solidified.

And there was Ylith, appearing from nowhere, looking disheveled, with smoke
coming out of the end of her broom.

"Azzie!" she cried. "Good thing you told me of this wish situation - and I
remembered. Is there a problem?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Azzie asked. "I'm still trying to get this kid to
name a wish so I can grant it and get out of here. But she and her father keep
arguing about what it should be."

Thomas Scrivener made pleading gestures to Ylith.

"What have you done to him?" Ylith asked.

"Well," Azzie said, "Brigitte here said she wanted him to shut up, so I shut
him up for her."

"Oh, Azzie, stop playing around. Little girl, what do you want to be when you
grow up?"

Brigitte considered. "When I was little I wanted to be a princess."

"I don't know whether Azzie can handle that," Ylith said.

"I don't want that now," Brigitte said. "Now I want to be a witch!"

"Why do you want that?"

"Because you're a witch," Brigitte said. "I want to be like you and ride a
broomstick and enchant people."

Ylith smiled. "Azzie, what do you think?"

"One more witch, what does it matter?" Azzie asked. "Is that it, kid? You
want to be a witch?"

"Yes!" said Brigitte.

Azzie turned to Ylith. "What do you think?"

"Well, Ido take on apprentices from time to time. Brigitte is a little young,
but in a few years ..."

"Oh, yes, please!" Brigitte said.

"All right," Ylith said.

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"Okay," Azzie said. "You got it, kid. Now let me out of here."

"First give my father his voice again."

Azzie did as was requested of him. Thomas Scrivener went to give Brigitte a
good slap alongside the head. He found his arm held by an invisible force.

"What did you do?" Brigitte asked Ylith.

"It's simple enough magic," Ylith said. Turning to Scriv-ener, she said, "Be
good to your little girl. In a few years she will be able to make mince pies
of you. And you'll have me to reckon with, too."

Chapter 1

After Brigitte released Azzie from his captivity, Ylith tied together two of
her broomsticks with a stout straw rope and, with Azzie clinging behind her,
rode them back to Augsburg. The sensation of the virile young demon clinging
to her was very sweet to Ylith. She felt a frisson of delight when his claws,
gripping her shoulders, acciden-tally brushed her breast. What bliss it was to
ride with the beloved high above the clouds! For a while all thought of sin or
sinner was forgotten, all question of good and evil put aside as she cavorted
in the high blue of the sky, through violet-tinged clouds formed into
fantastical shapes, melting and re-forming before her eyes. Azzie liked it,
too, but urged her to hurry home. They had to recover the young couple from
the Harpies.

Back at the mansion, Ylith had a chance to wash her hair and pin it up
securely. Then she was ready for the journey.

Using a freshly charged broomstick, Ylith mounted the heights, flying alone
now, darting and sweeping with quick control. The earth fell away, and soon
she was in the sparkling realms of the sky. There she searched and searched,
but not a sign of the Harpies could she discover. She circumnavigated the
world by its outer edge and still did not find them. But then a slow-moving
pelican appeared and told her, "You're looking for the Harpies with the two
stiffs? They told me to tell you they got bored and have parked the couple in
a safe place and gone back to rejoin their sisters."

"Did they say anything else?" Ylith asked, making slip-stream movements to
keep her speed down to that of the slow-moving pelican.

"Just something about a mah-jongg game," the pelican said.

"Didn't they say where this safe place was?"

"Not a bit of it!" said the pelican. "I thought about re-minding them, but
they were off, and there was no way I could overtake them. You know how fast
they go with those new-fangled brazen wings."

"In which direction did they fly?" Ylith asked.

"North," the pelican said, motioning with his wing tip.

"True north or magnetic?"

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"True north," the pelican said.

"Then I think I know where they are," Ylith said.

She turned her course to the north and piled on the speed, even though she
knew the wind force would make her eyes red and unattractive. She overflew the
land of the Franks in no time, then passed the deep fjord-pierced coast where
Northmen still worshiped old gods and fought with hammers, axes, and other
farm tools. She went past the lands of the Lapps, who sensed her passing as
they trekked over the snow with their reindeer herds, but pretended not to see
her since the best thing to do with ambiguous phenomena was to ignore them.
And at last she came to the North Pole, the real one which existed within the
imaginary point of true and absolute north and could not be reached by
mortals. Slipping through the fold of reality in which it lay, she saw, below
her, Father Christmas' Village.

It was built upon the solid sheet of ice with which the North Pole was
capped. The buildings that had been set up here were very fine indeed, being
half-timbered and wainscoted. Over to one side Ylith could see the workshop,
where Father Christmas' gnomes made gifts of all sorts for mortals. These
workshops are well known. What is less well known is the fact that there is a
special room at the back where essences of good and evil are received from the
secret storage places of Earth.

In each gift, a bit of good luck or a bit of bad luck was inserted. Exactly
who got what kind of luck was a matter no one could tell. But it seemed to
Ylith as she strolled through the workshop, watching the little men with their
hammers and screwdrivers, that the process was more or less random. There was
a hopper in the center of the big worktable, and into it fell glistening bits
of good or bad luck, each of them like a little bouquet of herbs. A dwarf
would reach in and insert the luck into the Christmas gift without even
looking to see what it was.

Ylith asked the dwarves whether a pair of Harpies had come by recently
carrying two frozen people. The dwarves shook their heads irritably. Making
and stuffing Christmas pres-ents is precision work, and if people talk to you,
it spoils the rhythm. One of them jerked his head toward the back of the
workshop. Ylith went that way and saw, at the end of the long room, a door
with an inscription on it: SANTA'S OFFICE. She went there, knocked, entered.

Santa was a big, fat man with the sort of face that smiled easily. But looks
don't always tell the story. Santa was frowning, and his face was long and
drawn as he talked into a magical seashell.

"Hello, is this Supply? I need to talk to someone."

The answer came out of a baboon's head, stuffed and mounted on the wall.

"This is Supply. With whom am I speaking?"

"Claus here. Santa Claus."

"Yes, Mr. Claus. Are you authorized to speak to us here in Supply?"

"I guess you haven't heard of me," Santa Claus said. "I'm the one who brings
presents around every December twenty-fifth by the new calendar."

"Oh,that Santa Claus! When do you start bringing pres-ents for demons?"

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"I'm overworked enough bringing presents for humans," Santa Claus said. "I've
got this problem-"

"Just a minute," the voice said. "I will connect you with the problems
clerk."

Santa Claus sighed. He was on hold again. Then he noticed Ylith, who had just
entered the room.

He blinked three times rapidly behind his little rectangular spectacles.
"Goodness gracious! You're not a dwarf, are you?"

"No," Ylith said, "and I'm not a reindeer, either. But I'll give you a clue.
I got here on a broomstick."

"Then you must be a witch!"

"You've got it."

"Are you going to bewitch me?" Santa asked, slobbering slightly as he
perceived Ylith's charms, which had been brought into prominence by her
windblown clothes. "I wouldn't mind being bewitched, you know. Nobody ever
thinks of bewitching Santa Claus. As if I don't need a little cheering up from
time to time, eh? Who brings Santa Claus presents, eh? Ever think of that?
It's give, give, give all the time around here. But what do I get out of it?"

"Satisfaction. You bask in everybody's love."

"It's the presents they love, not me."

"The giver is part of the given," Ylith said.

Santa Claus paused and considered. "Do you really think so?"

"How could it be any other way?"

"Well, that's better, then. Might I inquire what you are doing here? There's
never anyone but dwarves and reindeer around here. And me, of course."

"I came," Ylith said, "because I need to pick up some packages that were left
for me here."

"Packages? What kind of packages?"

"One male, one female. Both humans. Both frozen solid. The Harpies brought
them here."

"Oh, those terrible Harpies!" Santa said. "They've left the snow yellow for
miles around!"

"What about the frozen people?"

"They're out in back, in the woodshed."

"I'll pick them up now," Ylith said. "Oh, and one thing more. There's a
little girl on Earth named Brigitte Scrivener."

"Little dirty-faced kid with a saucy manner? " Santa always remembered the
children.

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"That's her. What I'd like you to do is bring her a dollhouse this year. The
sort you usually only give to princesses. Filled
with moving figures, wallpaper, radios, and other magical things."

"This kid was real good, eh?"

"Goodness had nothing to do with it," Ylith said. "She got a promise from a
demon and this is part of the payoff."

"Why isn't the demon himself here to get it?"

"He had other stuff to do. You know how demons are."

Santa Claus nodded. "Okay, she'll get the present. Do you want me to take
special care to make sure it gets a bit of good luck in it?"

Ylith thought it over carefully. "No, just give her whatever comes up. The
dollhouse is enough. She'll have to take her chances on the luck it'll bring
her just like anyone else."

"Sagely put," Santa said. "Now, before you go, let me give you a present."

"What are you talking about?"

"This!" Santa cried, tearing at his nether clothing.

"Thanks all the same," Ylith said, fending him off easily, "but I really
don't need your gift now. Keep it for some other lucky lady."

"But no one ever comes this way!" Santa said. "It's only elves and reindeer!"

"Tough!" Ylith went to the woodshed. She carried out the bodies of Charming
and Scarlet. They were both frozen stiff as logs and heavy as sin. Ylith had
to call on all her witch strength to lift them.

"Send me one of your witch friends!" Santa shouted. "Tell her I give
presents!"

"I'll tell them," Ylith said. "Witches love presents." And then she rose into
the air, bearing Scarlet and Charming, head-ing for Azzie's mansion in
Augsburg as fast as she could fly.

Chapter 2

Azzie was pacing nervously in the back courtyard when Frike said to him, "I
think that's her, master!" He was pointing into the eastern sky.

As Azzie watched, Ylith appeared, flying slowly with four broomsticks, and
carrying the two frozen bodies by ropes sus-pended from them.

"Careful how you put them down!" Azzie shouted as she soared in for a
landing.

"Don't tell a witch how to ride a broomstick," Ylith said, elegantly setting
down her burden near the door to the alchem-ical laboratory.

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"At last!" Azzie said, hurrying over to look at the couple. "Took your time
about getting here, didn't you?"

"Thanks a lot!" Ylith said. "Go fetch your own bodies next time. And get your
own eyes!"

Azzie instantly changed his manner. "I'm sorry, Ylith, but I really have to
hurry up or I'll never get these two set up and rolling by contest time. I've
gotten some more ichor. Let's stow Charming for the present and get Scarlet to
the castle and animate her."

"Just as you wish," Ylith said.

"That's great," Azzie observed when they were done with the Prince. "Now I
just hope everything is ready at the castle. We'll go there at once."

And so they did. Ylith carried Scarlet, still rigid with cold, and Azzie,
utilizing his considerable flying powers, followed carrying Frike and a sack
of provisions and spells he thought he'd need.

"Get that fire going!" Azzie said to Frike, later, when they had taken up
residence in the enchanted castle. They were in an upper story, where a
chamber had been prepared for Prin-cess Scarlet. First, of course, they had to
animate her.

"Have you got the eyes?"Azzie asked.

"Right here," Ylith said. "I got this set from Chodlos, the artist who
painted her as the Magdalene."

"And for Prince Charming?"

"The eyes of Skander, the dragon."

"Very nice," Azzie said. "Why is it still so cold in here?"

Frike had been stoking the big fireplace in the bedchamber for over an hour,
and the place was still cold. The stone walls seemed to absorb the heat. At
this rate they'd never get Scarlet thawed out. They could see her in a rather
distorted fashion through the bluish ice. Her features seemed to be at repose.
Frike's stitches were not too noticeable. The dancer's legs he had attached to
the trunk of the Magdalene model were stitched around the mid-thighs, but the
stitching looked like a garter. Frike had some surprising skills.

But why did she take so long to thaw out? Was there a magical spell on this
ice? Azzie poked at the ice with his claws and found that it had barely
softened.

The fire still wasn't hot enough. Azzie had requisitioned room-warming spells
quite a while ago, but they still hadn't come through. He repeated his request
now, using the unlimited credit card to ensure instant delivery. In a moment
there was a soft explosion in the air and a brand-new warming spell fell into
the room, neatly encased in its opaque eggshell.

"At last!" Azzie said, cracking the shell. The spell whooshed silently out
and the room warmed up ten degrees almost at once.

"Now for the animating procedure," Azzie said after some thawing had
occurred. "Quick, Frike, the ichor."

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The servant hunched over the recumbent Princess and splashed ichor on her
face.

"Now the animating spell," Azzie said, and recited it.

The composite creature whom they called Princess Scarlet lay still as death
and as pale. Then a faint tremor passed over her cheek. Her finely shaped lips
moved and parted, and her little tongue came out to taste the ichor. Then her
delicate nose widened, her body stirred, relaxed again.

"Quick," Azzie said. "Put in the eyes!"

The eyes fit into place easily. Another spell was necessary now, a
vision-start-up spell, quite rare, but Supply had managed to find one. As
Azzie chanted Princess Scarlet's eyelids flittered, fluttered, then lifted.
Her new eyes, of deepest sapphire, gazed out at the world. Her face took on
expression, animation. She looked around and gave a soft moan.

"Who are you all?" Scarlet said. Her voice was loud and snappish, and
conveyed in addition a sense of peevishness. Azzie didn't like the sound of
that. But luckily he didn't have to love her. That was Charming's task.

The Princess, a newly created being, had no memory. Now it was necessary to
explain matters to her.

"Who are you?" Scarlet exclaimed again.

"Your uncle Azzie, of course," Azzie said. "You remember me, surely?"

"Oh, sure," Scarlet said, though of course she didn't. Death had wiped her
mind of its memories, the good and the bad alike, and returned her to the
world a tabula rasa.

"What's going on, Uncle Azzie? Where's Mummy?"

That had been an expected question. All living creatures assume they had a
mother and never take it into their heads that someone might have sewn them
together out of a collection of parts.

"Mummy and Daddy,"Azzie said, "which is to say, Their Royal Highnesses, are
under an enchantment."

"Did you say 'Royal Highnesses'?"

"Yes, my dear. You, of course, are a princess. Princess

Scarlet. You want to release your parents from their spell, don't you?"

"What? Oh, sure," Princess Scarlet said. "So I'm a prin-cess!"

"They can be released," Azzie said, "only after you have been rescued from
your own enchantment."

"I'm under an enchantment?"

"That is correct, my dear."

"Well-take it away, then!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that," Azzie said. "I'm not the right person."

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"Oh. What sort of a spell am I under?"

"You are under a sleeping spell. You spend twenty-some hours a day either
sleeping or napping. They call you the Nap-ping Princess. Only one man can
break the spell. That is Prince Charming."

"Prince Charming? Who's that?"

"Nobody you've met before, my dear. Prince Charming is a fine, handsome young
man of noble family who has just re-cently heard of your plight. He is on his
way here to awaken you with a kiss and take you away to a life of bliss."

Scarlet considered. "It sounds good. But are you sure I'm not dreaming this?"

"This is not a dream, except in the sense that all experience, waking or
sleeping, living or dead, is possibly a dream. But leaving metaphysics aside,
this is real and you have been en-chanted into sleeping. Believe me, trust me
on this. Obviously you aren't asleep at the moment, because I need to talk to
you and advise you on a few things."

"Maybe the spell isn't working," Scarlet said.

"I'm afraid it is," Azzie said, surreptitiously taking out the sleep spell
from his pouch and pressing the little pin that ac-tivated it.

Scarlet yawned. "You're right, Iam sleepy. But I haven't even had dinner!"

"We'll have it ready for you when you awaken," Azzie said.

The Princess' eyes closed and soon she was in a sound sleep. Azzie, under the
watchful eye of Ylith, carried her to her bedroom and tucked her in.

Over the next few days it became apparent that Princess Scarlet was going to
be difficult. She didn't want to listen to Azzie. Not even Ylith, with her
calm and intelligent ways, could get through to the girl, not even in the
guise of her aunt. That Scarlet was beautiful, there was no doubt. Not least
of her charms was the fact that her long dancer's legs, olive brown and
shapely beyond measure, carried an alabaster-white body topped with a blond
head. Her dark legs gave Princess Scarlet the look of wearing silk stockings.
This did nothing to harm her beauty.

But those long legs were a problem in themselves, and seemed to carry their
own karma. The Princess was caught up with a dancing mania. Azzie had to try a
number of spells before he could quench this.

But even under the napping spell, Princess Scarlet walked in her sleep, her
long legs guiding her to the great downstairs ballroom, where she danced to
flamenco music heard only by herself. Azzie had to take into account the
Princess' peregri-nations during sleep.

"Ylith," he asked, "will you stay and look after her? I'm afraid she's a bit
unstable. She might fall and do herself harm. But she has spirit, and I'm sure
she'll do what we expect of her."

"I suppose so," Ylith said. "By the way, I asked Santa Claus to give Brigitte
a fancy dollhouse for Christmas."

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"Oh. Thanks."

"I just told you in case you had forgotten you'd promised her one."

"I hadn't forgotten," Azzie said, though he had. "But thanks anyhow. Take
good care of her, okay?"

"I'm doing this for you, Azzie," Ylith said, in a melting voice.

"And I really appreciate it," Azzie said, in a voice which expressed the
opposite. "Gotta go get Charming up and moving. Catch you later, okay?"

Ylith shook her head as her demon lover departed in a flash of showy
fireworks. Why had she ever fallen in love with a demon? And if a demon, why
this particular demon? She didn't know. The ways of fate were inscrutable, to
say the least.

Chapter 3

I just hope we don't have any trouble with this one," Azzie said. "You got
those dragon eyes ready, Frike?"

"Yes, master," Frike said. He opened the waterproof deer-skin bag in which
the dragon's eyes soaked in a solution of ichor, salt water, and vinegar. He
lifted out the eyes, first remembering to wipe his hands on his smock, for
hygiene in those days, while still rudimentary, seemed important in this
situation.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Azzie said, inserting them into Charming's eye
sockets and applying ichor around the edges.

And indeed they were handsome eyes - colored like smoky topaz, with a deep
glitter to them.

"They worry me, these eyes," Frike said. "I believe that dragon's eyes see
through falsehood."

"Just what a hero needs."

"But won't he see throughthis falsehood?" Frike asked, indicating, with a
sweep of his arm, Azzie, the mansion, and himself.

"No, my poor Frike," Azzie said. "Dragon's eyes cannot see through the
falsehood in their own situation. They can detect the flaw in others, but not
in themselves. He won't be easily led astray, our Prince Charming, but he
won't be wise enough or sufficiently farseeing to discover his own situation."

"Ah!" said Frike. "He stirs!"

Azziehad already taken the precaution of assuming his kindly-uncle disguise.
"There, there, lad," he said, smoothing back the youth's golden hair.

"Where am I?" Charming asked.

"You might better ask who you are," Azzie said. "And then you should want to
know who I am.Where you are comes a distant third on the list of vital

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questions."

"Well, then . . . Who am I?"

"You are a noble prince whose original name has been lost but who is referred
to by everyone as 'Prince Charming.' "

"Prince Charming," the youth mused. He sat up. "I sup-pose that means I'm of
noble blood, doesn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so," Azzie said. "You are Prince Charming, and I am your
uncle Azzie."

Prince Charming accepted that readily enough. "Hello, Uncle Azzie. I don't
remember you, but if you say you're my uncle, that's fine with me. Now that I
know that, can I ask where we are?"

"Certainly," Azzie said. "Augsburg."

"That's nice," Charming said, a little vaguely. "I've got a feeling I've
always wanted to see Augsburg."

"And so you shall," Azzie said, smiling to himself to think what a docile
creature he'd created. "You'll get a good look at it during training, and
again when you ride out of town on your quest."

"My quest, Uncle?"

"Yes, lad. You were a famous warrior before the accident that took away your
memory."

"How did I come by this accident, Uncle?"

"Fighting bravely against many foes. You slew numbers of them-you're very
good with a sword, you know-but one of the caitiffs sneaked up behind you and
hit you over the head with a broadsword when you weren't expecting it."

"That hardly seems fair!"

"People are often unfair," Azzie said. "Though you're too innocent to realize
that. But never mind. Your pure heart and lofty spirit will win you golden
opinions wherever you go."

"That's nice," Charming said. "I want for people to think highly of me."

"And so they shall, my boy, when you have performed the great deed for which
you are destined to be renowned."

"What deed is that, Uncle?"

"Winning through the various dangers that stand between you and Princess
Scarlet, the Napping Beauty."

"Princess who? What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the great deed that will make you world-famous, and give
you happiness beyond human measure."

"Oh. That sounds good. Go on, Uncle. You mentioned a sleeping princess?"

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"Napping, not sleeping. But it is a severe disability all the same. My boy,
it is written that only a kiss from your lips can awaken her from this spell.
When she awakens and beholds you, she will fall madly in love with you. You
will also fall in love with her, and everybody will be very happy."

"She's good-looking, this princess?" asked Charming.

"You better believe it," Azzie said. "You will awaken her with a kiss. She
will open her eyes and look at you. Her arms will close softly around your
neck, she will lift her face to yours, and you will know bliss of an order
seldom experienced by mortal man."

"It'll be fun, huh?" said the Prince. "Is that what you mean, Uncle?"

"Fun is too mild a word for the pleasure you will feel."

"Sounds great," Charming said. He got up and tried a few steps around the
room. "Let's go do it now, okay? I'll kiss her and then she and I can start
having fun."

"It can't be quite as fast as that," Azzie said.

"Why not?"

"It is not easy to reach the Princess. You must fight your way through many
perils."

"What sort of perils? Dangerous ones?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so," Azzie said. "But don't worry, you'll win through after
Frike and I have supervised your training in arms."

"I thought you said I was already trained."

"Well," said Azzie, "a brushup will do no harm."

"Frankly," Charming said, "this whole thing sounds dan-gerous.'

"Of course it is," Azzie said. "That's how it is with perils. But that
doesn't matter, you'll be fine. Frike and I will give you instruction in
weapons, and then you will set forth."

"Weapons are dangerous. Other people can kill you with them. I remember that
much."

You would, with your coward's heart, Azzie thought. Aloud he said, "You'll
have superior weapons which none can oppose. And magical spells. And, most
important of all, a magic sword."

"Swords!" Charming said, with a disgusted expression."Now I remember swords!
Horrible pointed things people use to open up great cuts in each other."

"But think of the cause,"Azzie said. "Think of the Prin-cess! You will fight,
of course, but I assure you, you will prevail."

"I couldn't do it," Charming said. "No, I'm sorry, but I just couldn't."

"Why not?" Azzie demanded.

"Because I remember now, I'm a conscientious objector," Charming said.

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"The hell you say! You've just been reborn! That is, brought out of the deep
sleep caused by your wounds. How can you suddenly be a conscientious
objector?"

"Because I know very well," Charming said, "that if I were in a situation
where violence was imminent, I would simply faint dead away."

Azzie looked at Frike, who looked vacantly at a spot on the wall. Even this
innocent-seeming movement was capable of interpretation. Azzie knew that Frike
was secretly mocking him because he had gone to all this trouble to create a
Prince Charm-ing and he had had the bad sense to give him a coward's heart.

"Now, get this straight," Azzie said to Charming. "You are going to get some
training. Then I'm going to get you an enchanted sword that will do away with
everything it encoun-ters. And then you are going forth on this quest."

"What if I get hurt?"

"Prince Charming," Azzie said sternly, "you had better master this fear of
yours. I assure you, you are going to go out of here with a magic sword and
see what you can do with it; or you are going to get it from me. And since I
have demonic friends, getting it from me is apt to be more painful than
any-thing you can imagine. Now go to your room and wash up. It is almost time
for dinner."

"What are we having?" Charming asked. "Something French with plenty of sauce,
I hope."

"Beef and potatoes," Azzie said. "We're building fighting men here, not
dancing masters."

"Yes, Uncle," Charming said, and walked away. There was a pronounced slink to
his walk. Azzie glared at Frike, daring him to comment. The servant lurched
awry. Azzie found a chair in front of the fire and sat. He stared thoughtfully
into the fire. He was going to have to come up with something extra. Prince
Charming was sure to cut and run the first time he was in peril. And that
would make Azzie a laughingstock every-where in the three worlds. And that
Azzie was not going to take.

Chapter 4

The next morning, Azzie began Prince Charming's train-ing. First, there were
exercises in swordplay. For a young man about to face dangerous enchantments,
the sword was the great all-purpose weapon. Properly used, a sword can kill
just about anything. Prince Charming showed considerable natural talent with
the blade. His trunk and right arm had been the property of a swordsman who
had been highly skilled. This skill showed when Charming lunged and parried,
advanced with stamping right foot, retreated with his sword swinging a
windmill of flashing steel. Even Azzie, no mean swordsman himself, was
hard-pressed by Charming's impetu-ous advances and cunning ripostes.

But the Prince seemed constitutionally unable to press his advantage once he
had won one. Azzie, clad in an old exercise tunic and wearing only a mild
sword-turning spell on his upper body, worked with him over and over on the
basic maneuvers.

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"Come on!" Azzie said, panting as the two went at it in the shadowed exercise
yard behind the mansion. "Get your back into it! Attack me!"

"I would not want to hurt you, Uncle," Charming said.

"Believe me, you won't touch me. Come on now, go for me!"

Charming tried, but his native cowardice prevented him.

Whenever he got close enough to Azzie to perform a killing stroke, he
faltered, and the lithe demon was able to batter aside his guard and touch
him.

Worse than that, when Azzie attacked, shouting fierce words and stamping his
foot, Prince Charming's skill fell apart and he had to turn and run.

Frike, watching, shook his head. Who would have thought that one little part
of Charming's body, a coward's heart, would expand and suffuse his entire
frame?

Azzie tried the various spells at his command, hoping to enchant the Prince
into courage. But something obdurate about him seemed impervious to
exhortation and spell alike.

When they were not fencing and exercising, Prince Charm-ing went off to a
little gazebo in the far end of Azzie's estate. Here he kept his
collection-because, despite his promising appearance, he was given to playing
with dolls, dressing them up, and setting them out for high tea. Azzie thought
of taking the dolls away until the Prince could attack properly, but Frike
advised him against it.

"Oftentimes," he said, "the removing of a childish pleasure can drive a young
man into a decline. Charming is uncertain enough as it is without you taking
his dolls from him."

Azzie had to agree. It was obvious to him that something had to be done. But
first he had to get the Prince's enchanted sword.

Supply had been promising one for what seemed like ages, but still hadn't
been able to come up with the genuine article. They had plenty of Fairly Lucky
Swords, of course, but none that was truly enchanted, with the ability to
pierce any guard, to cut through dragons' scales, to plunge deep into the
heart of an enemy. All the magic swords they knew of were already in use by
other heroes, since Azzie's was by no means the only quest going on at this
time. Azzie pleaded that his contest was special, since its winning or losing
involved no less than the fortunes of evil for the next thousand years.
"Sure," the supply-clerk said, "that's what they all say. Important, crash
priority, believe me, we've heard it all before."

"But in this case it's really true!"

The clerk smiled unpleasantly. "Sure it's true, same as all the rest."

Azzie decided to leave Charming's training in the hands of Frike, who seemed
to frighten Charming just a bit less than did Azzie himself. Azzie betook
himself to Princess Scarlet's castle to see how the preparations were going
there.

He came down on the outskirts of the enchanted forest. He had spent a lot of

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time and thought on this, and Supply had been pretty good about getting him
what he wanted.

He stood at the edge of his forest, peering in. It was green and bosky, just
as a forest should be. Azzie advanced into it. No sooner was he within the
green confines than the trees began to move, and their limbs swung down slowly
to grasp and seize him. Azzie eluded them with ease. The forest hadn't really
received its full complement of fabulous animals and other strange creatures.
And the branches moved so slowly that even a dimwit like Charming could avoid
them without difficulty. Damn it, he thought, why was Supply holding out on
him?

Angry, he flew back to Augsburg to see how Frike was proceeding with the
training. He found his servant sitting on the front stoop eating an apple.

"What's the matter?" Azzie said. "Why aren't you exer-cising him?"

Frike shrugged. "He said he'd had enough. He said that he had decided to take
a vow not to kill any living thing. Would you believe it, he's turned
vegetarian and is considering joining a monastic order."

"Now that is entirely too much," Azzie said.

"Agreed, sire," Frike said. "But what can you do about it?"

"I need some expert advice on this one," Azzie said. "Go prepare my magic
powders and the Amulet of Expedition. It's time for me to do some conjuring."

Chapter 5

At first Azzie thought his spells weren't working because Hermes didn't
appear no matter what he did. He tried again, with the big candles made from
dead-man's wax that he saved for really difficult occasions. This time he
could feel the spell working. He projected power into it and felt it racing
through the aether, spinning through the crack between the worlds, nosing
around like a questing bird dog. Then Azzie heard a grumpy voice saying, "All
right, I'm awake now." And a few moments after that, the heroic marble-white
body of Hermes appeared before him. The god was still combing his long brown
hair, and he seemed more than a little annoyed.

"My dear Azzie, you should know better than to use a peremptory spell to call
me like that. We spirit-advisers have our personal lives, too, you know. It's
not nice to have to drop everything and get conjured up by some young demon
like yourself."

"I am sorry," Azzie said. "But you've been so generous to me in the past . .
. and my problem now is very dire."

"Well, let's hear it," Hermes said. "I don't suppose you have a glass of
ichor around."

"Of course I do," Azzie said. He poured the ichor into a goblet carved from a
single amethyst. While Hermes sipped at it Azzie explained his difficulty with
Prince Charming.

"Let me see. . . ." Hermes said. "Yes, I remember some old writings on the

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subject. What your Prince Charming is doing is known classically as the Hero
Refusing the Quest."

"I didn't know heroes could do that," Azzie said.

"Oh, yes. It's quite common. Do you know anything about your hero's family?"

"He doesn't have any family!" Azzie said. "I created him all by myself!"

"Yes, I know you did," Hermes said. "But recall what we learned of his legs.
All his body parts have remembrances, especially the heart."

"He has a coward's heart," Azzie admitted. "I never looked into the rest of
the family."

"I'll check it out for you," Hermes said. He vanished, not in a cloud of
smoke as common demons vanish, but in a great flash of fire. Azzie admired the
exit. It was something he would really like to learn.

Soon Hermes returned. "It is as I suspected. Your cadaver with the coward's
heart was the middle of three sons."

"So? What does that mean?"

"In the Old Lore, the middle son is usually the worthless one. The eldest son
inherits the kingdom. In the ordinary course of things, the youngest son goes
out on the quest and wins a kingdom. The middle son just hangs around and
never does much. It's nature's way of balancing the qualities."

"Hellfire!" Azzie said. "I'm stuck with a middle son who's a coward! What am
I to do?"

"Since he is still unformed, there's hope of changing his mind. Perhaps you
could convince him that he's a younger son. Then he will be more fit for the
quest."

"Will that stop him from being a coward?"

"I'm afraid not," Hermes said. "It will help, of course, especially if you
tell him stories of how fierce his ancestors were. But his cowardice is an
innate tendency not to be cured by exhortation."

"What do you suggest, then?" Azzie asked.

"The only known cure for cowardice," Hermes said, "is an herb known as gutsia
sempervirens."

"Where does it grow?" Azzie asked. "And does it really work?"

"Its efficacy is unquestioned. Gutsia, or the nerve plant, as it is also
known, imbues a man with rashness and blind-sightedness. You must administer
it in small doses, otherwise courage turns into foolhardiness and the hero is
killed before he ever gets properly started."

"It's hard to imagine Charming being foolhardy."

"Give him a dose of gutsia about the size of his smallest fingernail, and you
will see results that will surprise you. But remember, it's always best to
balance it off with something else, like coolandria, the herb of careful
forethought."

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"I'll remember that," Azzie said. "Now, where am I to find this gutsia?"

"That is the real problem," Hermes confessed. "Back in the Golden Age there
was a lot of it about, and no one bothered to eat it, since courage wasn't
needed in those days, only ca-pacity for enjoyment. Then came the Age of
Bronze, when men fought each other, and the Age of Iron, when they fought not
only each other but all other things as well. In those days, men consumed the
herb in great quantities. That is one of the reasons why the men of old had
such prowess. But the race of humans almost died away from too much warfare
pursued too coura-geously. With the climate change that the new age brought,
the gutsia plant died off. And now it is to be found in only one place."

"Tell me where that is," Azzie said.

"It is on the back shelves of Supply," Hermes said, "where the remaining
plants were dried and then put into tinctures of ichor for eternal
preservation."

"But I already asked Supply for something of that sort! They said they had
never heard of such a thing!"

"That's very like them," Hermes said. "You must find some way to get them to
make a really exhaustive search. I'm sorry, Azzie, but there's nothing else I
can think of that will suffice."

This was a problem, because Supply was acting less and less cooperative. In
fact, Azzie had the impression they had written off his quest and were now
taking long naps and waiting until something else came up. Azzie knew he was
in trouble. He talked to the Prince, recounting to him the heroic deeds of his
imaginary ancestors and urging him to copy them in all respects. The Prince
wasn't interested, however. Even when Azzie brought him small portraits of
Scarlet, done by demon artists who could be counted on not to leave out any
pulchri-tudinous feature, the young man still seemed uninterested, and talked
about opening up a dress shop when he was a little older.

Chapter 6

It was early evening. The August sun had been beaming down all day on the
mansion in Augsburg. Azzie was sit-ting in the big roughhewn easy chair,
reading one of the fliers that the Department of Infernal Affairs put out from
time to time. It was the usual thing, an exhortation to everyone to do bad for
the common cause, and a list of infernal activities around the nation. There
was a calendar of birthday announce-ments for changelings who had been put
into human cradles while the real human babies had been taken away to be
re-modeled and sent to populate the tribe of Aztecs in the New World, whose
blood sacrifices had aroused general admiration. There were house-burning
celebrations and Pit sales. All the usual sorts of things, with a few snippets
of news here and there. Azzie read, though he was not really interested.
Some-times you found something useful in these homely items, more often not.

Then, as his eyes grew heavy, as he began to drowse in front of the
fireplace, there came a vast knocking at the high main door of the mansion. It
boomed so loudly that Azzie half jumped from his chair. Prince Charming, who
was copying Greek dress patterns from a clay tablet onto parchment, was up and
gone before the last clap had echoed away down the bosky glen. Only old Frike

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maintained his imperturbability, though this was not courage on his part: the
sudden heavy noise had frightened him into immobility, as the rabbit is said
to freeze when the falcon thunders down on him with angry wings and grasping
talons.

"Pretty late for a caller," Azzie mused.

"Aye, sire, and pretty loud, too," Frike said, unfreezing enough to tremble
all over.

"Pull yourself together, man,"Azzie said. "It's probably some traveler who
has lost his way. Put up a big kettle of water and I'll see who it is."

Azzie went to the door and threw back its massy bolts, twice-forged of
vulcanite steel.

Standing in the doorway was a tall figure dressed in white. He wore a simple
golden helmet with dove's wings fastened to each side. He was clad in
snow-white armor, and from his shoulders a white ermine coat depended. The
figure was hand-some in an insipid sort of way, with large, well-formed
features and big blue eyes.

"Hello," the figure said. "I think I have the correct address. This is the
residence of the demon Azzie Elbub, is it not?"

"You got that part right," Azzie said. "But whatever you're selling, I don't
want any. How dare you intrude on me in my hour of rest? "

"Terribly sorry to impose, but they told me to get here as quickly as I
could."

"They?"

"The steering committee of the Powers of Light Council on the Millennial
contest."

"You're from the Powers of Light?"

"Yes. Here are my credentials." He took out a scroll tied with a scarlet
ribbon and handed it to Azzie. Azzie unfurled it and read, in the heavy Gothic
print used by the council, orders to permit the bearer, Babriel, an angel of
the second order in the forces of Light, the right to go wherever he pleased
and to observe all things that took up his interest; and that this general
privilege also specifically applied to the demon Azzie Elbub, to whom he was
now seconded as an observer.

Azzie glared at him. "By what right do the Powers of Light send you here?
This is strictly a Powers of Darkness production, and the other side has no
right to interfere."

"I can assure you, I have no intention of interfering. May I come in and
explain further?"

Azzie was so taken aback by the Creature of Good's ef-frontery that he made
no complaint when the tall, golden-haired angel stepped inside the mansion and
looked around.

"What a nice place this is! I especially like the symbols on your wall." He
indicated the right, or west, wall, where, set in niches, were a series of
demons' heads done in black onyx. The demons had various aspects, including

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ape, falcon, asp, and from the New World, a wolverine.

"Those aren't symbols, stupid," Azzie said. "Those are busts of my
ancestors."

"What about this one?" the angel asked, indicating the wolverine head.

"That's my uncle Zanzibar. He emigrated to Greenland, arriving with Erik the
Red, and stayed on to become a graven image."

"What a far-traveling family you have!" said the angel, with an expression of
admiration. "I do so admire evil for its dash and vigor. It's wrong, of
course, but fascinating all the same. I'm Babriel, by the way."

Frike now spoke up. "If you're an angel, where are your wings?"

Babriel unbuckled his armor, beneath which, much cramped, was a pair of wings
which unfolded to reveal them-selves colored a beautiful palomino.

"What do you want?" Azzie asked. "I'm doing important work, I have no time to
hang around and chat."

"I told you, the Powers of Light sent me. It was decided by the high council
that your entry in the Millennial contest was of great interest to us. Since
it is so important an occasion, it seemed only fitting that we should dispatch
an observer to make sure that you didn't cheat. Not that we are accusing you
of that, of course. It just seemed businesslike of us to keep an eye on what
you were up to, no offense intended."

"I haven't got trouble enough," Azzie remarked. "Now I got to have an angel
looking over my shoulder."

"I just want to watch," Babriel said. "We hear a lot about evil where I come
from, but I've never seen any close up."

"It must be pretty dull where you come from," Azziesaid.

"It is, of course. But it's good, so of course we like it anyhow. But this
chance of seeing a real demon in action- doing bad things-well, I must
confess, the idea of evil titillates me."

"You like it, huh?" Azzie said.

"Oh, no! I wouldn't go so far as to say that. But I am interested, yes. And
perhaps I can even be of some help."

"To me? Are you kidding?"

"I know it must seem odd. But Good, by its very nature, tends to be helpful,
even in an evil cause. Real Good has no prejudice against Evil."

"That's all I want to hear about good," Azzie said. "I hope you're not some
missionary type here to convert me to the Other Side. It's no use. You
understand what I'm saying?"

"I'm sure I won't be any trouble," Babriel said. "And your own people have
agreed to this."

"Your scroll looks official enough to me," Azzie said. "Well, I've got
nothing against it. Observe all you want. Just don't try to steal any of my

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spells."

"I'd rather lose my right arm than steal from you!" Babriel said.

"I believe you," Azzie said. "You reallyare a fool, aren't you? Never mind,"
he added, seeing Babriel's crestfallen ex-pression, "it's just my way of
talking. There's plenty of food in the larder. No, on second thought, you
probably wouldn't like that. Frike, get our guest some chickens from the
village."

"But I'd be happy to partake of whatever you eat," Babriel said.

"No, you wouldn't," Azzie said. "Trust me on this. So how's Good doing these
days?"

"Our entry is coming along well," Babriel replied. "Foun-dations down and all
that. Transepts, nave, choir in place -"

"Entry? What are you talking about?"

"Good's entry in the Millennial contest."

"You're building something for it?"

"Yes. We've inspired a master builder and enspirited an entire village for
labor in a massive architectural undertaking. It will be a glorious structure
- inspiring humanity to the higher things: truth, beauty, goodness - "

"What do you call the thing?"

"We rather like the term 'Gothic cathedral.' "

"Hmm. And well, well. You guys stuck with an observer, too?"

"Yes. Bestialial is checking it out."

Azzie snorted.

"He's not exactly field personnel," he said. "Desk type. Still . . . Sound, I
suppose, when he's paying attention. So you think it's a good entry, huh?"

"Oh, yes. We're happy with it," Babriel said. "And that's what Good is doing.
But you know the saying, 'It's good, but it could always be better.' "

"That's just how it is with Evil," Azzie said. "Come into the study. I'll
pour you a shot of ichor."

"I've heard of it," Babriel said, "but I've never had any. Is it
intoxicating?"

"It gets the job done," Azzie said. "Life being what it is, I mean."

Babriel found this last statement opaque, to say the least. But when has good
ever understood evil? He followed Azzie into the study.

"Well then," Azzie said, "if you're going to stay, you're going to stay. I
suppose you want to live here in the mansion?"

"It would be more convenient for my duties," Babriel said. "I could pay rent.
. . ."

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"What sort of piker do you take me for?" Azzie asked indignantly, though the
idea of charging rent had crossed his mind. "You're a guest. Where I come
from, a guest is sacred."

"That's how it is where I come from, too," Babriel said.

"Big deal!" Azzie sneered. "For a Creature of Light to hold a guest sacred is
no big matter; but for one of Darkness to do so is remarkable indeed."

"Just what I was going to say," Babriel said.

"Don't try to ingratiate yourself with me," Azzie said. "I know the tricks
and I despise you and everything you stand for."

"That's just as it should be," Babriel said, with a smile.

"So you despise me, too?"

"Not at all! I meant that that was how it should be for you. You're what our
archangels call a natural. It's a privilege to see you in action."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," Azzie said, and found to his annoyance that
he rather liked Babriel. He'd do something about that! To Frike he said, "Show
him up to the little room in the attic."

Frike took an oil lamp, and bent nearly double, with his cane tapping ahead
of him and his hump standing up like a whale surfacing, he walked to the
stairs, followed by Babriel.

The stairs went up and up, past the polished corridors and rooms of the lower
floors. As they went higher the stairs grew steeper and narrower, with here
and there a tread missing. Frike stumped steadily along, and Babriel, tall and
erect, his white cloak glimmering faintly in the candlelight, followed, bowing
his head to avoid the low beams.

They came out at last on a landing near the top of the tall, high old
mansion. At the end of the short dark hallway was a door. Frike opened it and
entered with his lamp. By its flickering yellow light Babriel saw a small room
with a ceiling so low he could not stand erect. There was a tiny leaded window
high up, tilted at an angle to match the sloping roof. There was an iron cot
and a small wooden nightstand. The room was just a little longer than the cot.
The floor was thick with dust and the place smelled of cats in heat and
ancient moths.

"Very nice," Babriel said.

"A trifle small, perhaps," Frike said. "Perhaps if you asked the master, he
would let you have one of the third-floor suites."

"No need," Babriel said. "This will do nicely."

Just then there was a knock at the door.

"Who's there?" Frike asked.

"Supernal Delivery Service. Luggage for the angel Ba-briel."

"Ah, thank you," Babriel said. He opened the door. A man of medium height
stood there wearing a deliveryman's cap. He handed Babriel a piece of paper

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and a pen. Babriel signed and handed back the paper. The deliveryman tugged at
his forelock and disappeared.

"It's my luggage," Babriel told Frike. "Where should I put it?"

Frike looked around doubtfully. "On your bed, maybe. But then you'd have no
place to sleep."

"It'll work itself out," Babriel said, and pulled his suitcase into the room.
It was a very large suitcase and the only place there was room for itwas on
the bed, since he and Frike between them used up most of the available floor
space.

Babriel looked at the room and said, "Do you think it'll go into the corner?"

Frike looked at the acute angle formed where the room's walls met. "You
couldn't push a mouse's corpse into that corner, much less a big suitcase like
that."

"Let's give it a try anyway," Babriel said. He pushed the suitcase off the
bed and toward the corner. Although it was only a few inches from the end of
the bed to the corner, the trunk kept moving. The wall, instead of stopping
it, bulged outward to make room for it, and the other walls bulged out to stay
in proportion. The ceiling lifted, too, and Frike soon found that he was in
quite a large room rather than the tiny room he had entered.

"How did you do that?" Frike asked.

"Just one of those things you pick up when you move around a lot," Babriel
said modestly.

Aside from growing larger, the room had also grown brighter, for reasons that
didn't make themselves immediately apparent. Frike's eyes widened, then
widened again as he heard a curious scuttling noise at his feet. He looked
down and saw something small, about the size of a rat, scurrying out of sight.
Frike blinked, and when his vision cleared he saw that the floor, which had
been an inch deep in dust and cat droppings, had been freshly swept and
polished. A certain panic gripped him.

"I'll tell the master you're settling in nicely," Frike said, and departed.

* * *

Five minutes later Azzie came up to Babriel's room. Azzie looked at it, twice
as big as when he'd seen it last, brilliantly illuminated, nicely furnished,
clean, fragrant with frankincense and myrrh, and with a small door at one side
opened to reveal a fine tiled bathroom Azzie knew damned well hadn't been
there before.

There was a standing closet, too, and its door was open, revealing dozens of
Babriel's uniforms, of every cut and de-scription, some with medals, and many
with exaggerated collars and huge cuffs. Babriel had changed into one such. It
was white and silver, and came with a peaked cap. Azziethought he looked so
ludicrous as to appear sinister.

"Glad to see you're making yourself to home," Azzie said.

"I took the liberty of fixing the place up a little. I'll gladly restore it
to original condition when I leave."

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"Don't worry about it," Azzie said. "If I'd known you wanted fancy, you'd
have gotten fancy. What's that?"

He pointed to a rectangular blob of nacre and ormolu that swung from
Babriel's waist.

"Oh, that's my telephone," Babriel said. "So I can stay in touch with
headquarters."

Azzie glared at the handset. "They haven't even issued ours yet!"

"You'll love them when you get them," Babriel said.

Chapter 7

It was fine September weather. Azzie became more accus-tomed to having
Babriel living in his house. His room continued to expand, and Azzie had to
ask the angel to do some shoring up because it was threatening to capsize the
house with its weight and top-heavy leverage. And the training of Prince
Charming went on. The young man seemed to be gaining confidence. Azzie had
been feeding him a variety of herbal extracts, as well as other exotic
ingredients such as powdered unicorn horn, dried banshee shit, and distilled
corpse sweat. Charming was now able to hold his own against Frike with the
wooden swords, even though Frike fenced with his lame left arm to make the
contest more equal. There was definite pro-gress, though it was difficult to
say when the young Prince would be ready to face a real foe.

These were quiet days and nights. Azzie regretted only that Ylith was not
present. It had been necessary to leave her in the enchanted castle to look
after Princess Scarlet, whose rebellious ways were still something of a
problem.

One evening, asAzzie was sitting in the living room smok-ing his pipe and
feasting on a small plate of wolverine hearts with teriyaki sauce, there was a
great commotion overhead. Babriel, who was reading one of his interminable
books on how to be good, looked up startled as he heard the sound of hooves on
the roof. Then there came a scraping sound mixed with swearing. They advanced
to the chimney. Azzie could hear a loud grunting and moaning now, and at last
something large worked its way down.

It was lucky that, it being a mild September night, no fire was going. Santa
Claus emerged, some dark stains on his red suit, tasseled cap askew, a
scowling expression on his smudged face.

"Why," Santa Claus demanded, "did you close the flues? It makes it very
difficult getting through. And your chimney hasn't been cleaned in ages."

"Sorry, Santa," Azzie said. "I wasn't expecting you this time of year. Not
that you come often to us demons, anyhow."

"That's because our charter says we are to bring presents first to humans.
And there are more of them every day."

"I quite understand," Azzie responded. "In any event, we demons have our own
ways of giving and receiving. But why have you come? If it's a social visit,
you could have come in by the front door."

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"It's business, not social," Santa Claus said. "I have a rush order here for
a young lady witch who gave this as her address. Ylith is her name. Is she
around?"

"She's off at my other place," Azzie said. "Can I be of help?"

"You can accept this delivery for her." Santa took a large, gaily wrapped
package out of his pack.

"Sure. Glad to."

"You'll make sure she gets it?" Santa said. "It's for a little girl, Brigitte
is her name, to whom Ylith promised it."

"I'll see that she gets it."

"Thank you," Santa said. "I mentioned to Ylith how lonely it gets at the
North Pole. She said she'd send some witches my way and I'd give them presents
and a good time."

"Witches are overrated. You won't like them."

"You think not? Try a steady diet of elves before you knock witches. Well,
must be off."

Azzie walked Santa to the front door. He watched as Santa,

moving nimbly for so large a man, scrambled up the trellises to the roof.
Soon there was a clatter of hooves and the rest was silence.

Azzie went back inside and opened the package. Within was a miniature mansion
and farmyard. It was all nicely detailed with little people dolls, animal
dolls. There were tiny windows, mirrors, tables, chairs.

"Could use a little guillotine," he mused aloud. "I had one here someplace.
..."

Chapter 1

Over the next few days Charming continued to progress in the art of fencing.
But he did well only when every-thing went according to form. Unusual things
startled him, interrupting his coordination. And he was very distractible. At
every birdcall or slammed door he jerked his head around. Irregularities in
the ground upset his balance. Every footstep he took forward had a look of
retreat to it. Sudden gusts of wind caused him to close his eyes.

But it was mostly his cowardice that bothered Azzie, who knew it to be the
real reason for the other signs of ineptitude.

Babriel watched for a long while without comment, though he winced at the
young man's awkwardness and the way he flinched whenever Frike lifted his
sword.

"What, exactly, is wrong with him?" Babriel finally asked.

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"It's the coward's heart I gave him. Instead of imbuing him with basic
prudence, as it's supposed to do, it's filling his entire system with fear."

"But if he's so fearful, how will he go out for his quest?"

"I doubt he'll go at all," Azzie said. "I'm trying to motivate him, but
nothing is working. It looks like I'm licked before I even get started."

"Oh, dear," Babriel said.

"Yeah, well, you might say that, and a lot else."

"But your contest-the fairy tale you're planning to pre-sent- "

"Finished, over with, shot down,connsumatus est, and all that."

"It hardly seems fair," Babriel said. "But why throw in the sponge so soon? I
mean, heck, hang it all, isn't there some-thing you can do? "

"I need to get some gutsia for him. But my Supply people can't seem to find
any."

"Can't they, now? Bunch of slackers, unless I miss my guess. Let's see what
my fellows can do."

Azzie stared at him."You are going to get me gutsia?"

"That is what I propose," Babriel said.

"But that won't doyou any good!"

"Let me worry about that," Babriel said. "You've been such a nice host, I
feel I owe you something. And anyhow, the show must go on, eh?"

Babriel stood up, ducking his head because it was a low grape arbor in which
they stood, and reached into one of his pockets and withdrew a plastic credit
card. It was very much like Azzie's, only white instead of jet black. It bore
on one side a golden representation of a constellation moving toward the
position it would occupy at the Millennium's end. Babriel looked around for a
place to insert it, but couldn't find one.

"Let's take a walk," Babriel said. "Maybe there's some-thing out here. . . .
Ah, here's a bay tree, they're always good," He found a slit in the bay's bark
and inserted the card.

"What's supposed to happen now?" Azzie asked.

"Give them a moment to respond," Babriel said. "This is an unusual location
for a transmission from an angel of Light, you know."

"How's the Gothic cathedral coming?" Azzie asked.

"The walls are a lot higher," Babriel responded.

In a moment there came a soft explosion, then the sound of a carillon,
followed by a fanfare of trumpets. The supply clerk of Light appeared before
them. She was a young blond woman who wore a plain white gown which did not
prevent Azzie's noting that she looked pretty good and might be fun to cavort
with. He began to hum the ancient melody called "The Night a Sinner Met an
Angel" and edged toward her.

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The angel slapped him sharply with the small order book she was carrying.
"Don't be crude," she said in a nice voice that showed that although she meant
it, she didn't hold his attitude against him. Then, to Babriel: "How may I
help you?"

Azzie started to tell her how she could helphim, but Babriel frowned and
said, "What I need, dear person, is a quantity of the herb gutsia, which is
used by mortals for the acquiring of courage."

"I knew you wanted it for a mortal," the supply clerk said. "I can tell at a
glance that there's no lack of courage inthy makeup."

"It is dear of thee to say so," Babriel said. "Praise the Lord!"

"Praise Her!" said the clerk.

"What?" Azzie said. "I had always been led to believe - "

"We use 'He' and 'She' interchangeably when speaking of the Supreme Principle
of Good."

"Sometimes we even call her 'It,' " the clerk said. "Not that we believe that
She is an It, but we try to show no prej-udice."

"Can't you make up your minds?" Azzie asked.

"It makes no difference," she told him. "Supreme Good is beyond sexuality."

"That's not what we're taught," Azzie said. "According to our experts,
sexuality is the highest expression of evil, especially when it's good.

"As it could be between you and me, babe," Azzie ended, his voice going husky
and a disturbing odor of musk emanating from him.

The clerk frowned and patted her hair and turned to Ba-briel. "Canst thou not
restrain this ill-visaged specter of evil who leers at me with unveiled
meaning?"

"Oh, hey," Babriel said, "that's just Azzie. He's a demon, you know. They're
supposed to act that way-irreverent and sexual. Poor soul, he knows no better.
But not even demons are utterly beyond redemption."

"Praise the Lord!" the clerk said.

"Aye, praise Him," Babriel said.

Azzie said, "Hey, look, can we dispense with the hosannas and get on with the
stuff I need? You two can go courting on your own time."

"What a hateful thing to say!" the clerk said, blushing and looking away.
"I'll check on the gutsia. Wait right here."

She vanished in a beguiling manner.

"You've got cuter supply clerks than we have," Azzie said.

"That's because under the rule of the Good all creatures are equal. Perhaps,
since we have to wait, I could explain to you some of the more basic points of
our doctrine."

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"Don't bother," Azzie said. "I'm going to take a nap."

"Is it so easy for you to do that?"

"Evil is known for its eternal vigilance," Azzie said. "Ex-cept when it gets
fed up."

He closed his eyes. Soon the even rhythm of his breathing gave evidence that
he was either sleeping or doing a good job of faking it.

Left to his own devices, Babriel said a longish prayer for the salvation and
regeneration of all beings, even demons. By the time he had finished, the
clerk was back.

"I have the extract of gutsia," she said, handing Babriel a small flask in
which colors of red, violet, yellow, and blue could be seen coruscating
softly.

"Great," said Babriel. "We thank you. You have been most unfailingly
courteous, helpful, kind-"

"Let's get on with it," Azzie said. "Thanks a lot, babe. If you ever want to
change your luck - "

The supply clerk vanished in a cloud of indignation.

Azzie went to the kitchen to give Frike instructions in how to mix the gutsia
with Charming's cream of leek soup. Grateful as he was to Babriel for
procuring it for him, he was deeply suspicious. Why had the angel been so
helpful? Pure generosity didn't seem a sufficient motive. Were angels capable
of double-dealing? What was Babriel up to?

Chapter 2

Azzie administered the gutsia that evening, and Charm-ing showed a remarkable
improvement. Over the next few days, his fencing skill and aggressiveness
picked up. He was no longer interested in his dolls.

All in all, it seemed a good time to Azzie to bring up the subject of his
quest.

"I've been meaning to speak to you again about your fu-ture," Azzie said one
quiet afternoon when he and Prince Charming were together in the big common
room of the castle.

"Yes, Uncle?"

"You remember the things I told you about the Napping Princess?" he asked.
"It's about time to head off in her direc-tion."

"I wouldn't mind hanging around court," Charming said.

"Forget it. It's a great adventure that's in store for you."

"That's nice, Uncle. But, you know, I've been wonder-ing why I'm supposed to

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find her and kiss her and all, anyway."

Azzie took on a tone of deepest portent. "My boy, it was written long ago
that only a kiss on the lips from her true love would awaken the Princess from
the sleep."

"Hope that works out for her," Charming said.

"Of course it will! You, Prince Charming, are the destined lover and husband
of this fair maid."

"Are you sure it's supposed to be me, Uncle? I mean, how do you know it's not
some other fellow's quest?"

"Because it is so written."

"Written where?"

"Never mind where," Azzie said. "Just take my word for it, if I tell you it's
written, it's written. My boy, you are a very lucky youth. Princess Scarlet is
the most beautiful of maidens, and she comes with a rich dowry. It will be
difficult and dan-gerous getting to her, but I know you will do fine."

"How difficult? How dangerous?"

"There is an enchanted wood to pass through," Azzie ex-plained. "You must
fight the various denizens of the wood. Then there is the glass mountain which
you must somehow climb."

"This sounds extremely difficult," Charming said. "Glass mountain, eh?
Perhaps I could manage it. I don't know, though."

"I'll see that you come to no harm," Azzie told him. "Trust your old uncle
Azzie. Never set you wrong, did I?"

"You won't get a chance this time either," Charming said. "I'm not going."

"At least look at her picture. What do you think?" Azzie asked, showing
Prince Charming the miniature.

"She looks all right," Charming said, in tones of profound disinterest.

"Pretty, huh?" Azzie said.

"In a common sort of way."

"Fine bright eyes, eh?"

"Astigmatic, no doubt."

"And the mouth!"

"A regular sort of mouth," Charming said.

"Tiny! Dainty!"

"Smallish," Charming conceded.

"She's lovely, is she not?"

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"She's okay, I suppose," Charming said. "But I'm too young to have a princess
of my own forever and forever. I haven't even dated yet."

Charming's lack of interest was dismaying. Azzie had not expected this. As a
fairly typical demon, he was usually in a state of concupiscence. The very
idea that this Prince could be so blase about the beautiful Princess astounded
him. It irritated him also, and when he thought about it further, it worried
him.

If Prince Charming evinced no more than a polite interest in Scarlet, how
could he be expected to go through hell and high water to reach her bedside
and awaken her with a kiss? With his attitude, he'd be more likely to send her
a letter saying, "Time to wake up now, miss."

In vain Azzie pointed out the Princess' charms. Charming met them with a
devastating indifference which hurt Azzie's feelings, since the Princess was
his creation. But he couldn't be too angry since he had created the Prince as
well, and thus was more or less responsible for his attitude.

This was a turn of events Azzie had not expected. It had never occurred to
him that his Prince would not fall instantly in love with Scarlet. Now that
his cowardice seemed somewhat under control it seemed he was romantically
sluggish.

"Damn!" Azzie observed, gnashing his teeth. "Oh, damn! Another design flaw!"

It was a hellish situation.

Chapter 3

In the evening he put Charming out of the way with a magic sleep. Then he
headed for his conjuring room. Frike was there, humming to himself as he
topped off vials of agius regae, bloodswart, hellbane, and other herbs and
simples which wizardly demons find useful.

"Put that crap away," Azzie said. "I need to do some conjuring. Bring me ten
cc's of bat's blood, some demonswart, and a half gill of black hellebore."

"We're all out of black hellebore," Frike said. "Would toadswart or anything
else do?"

"I thought I told you to keep the stock up."

"I'm sorry, master. I developed a taste for it."

Azzie snorted.

"Stuff'll stunt your growth," he observed, "and make your palms hairy. Bring
me some heliogabulus root then. It will have to suffice."

Frike brought the root and, following Azzie's directions, arranged it around
a pentagram which was set into the stone floor with mother-of-pearl. He
lighted the black candles, and Azzie intoned the invocation. The words
employed many double glottal stops, a common feature of the ancient language
of evil. Presently, a wisp of gray and purple smoke appeared in the circle. It
expanded, filled out, grew larger, taller, thicker, and finally resolved into

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the tall figure of Hermes Trismegistus.

"Hail, Great One," Azzie said.

"Hi there, Little One," Hermes said. "What seems to be the trouble?"

Azzie related his difficulties with Charming. Hermes said, "You made an error
in telling him about the Princess, Azzie. You assumed that things happen in
real life as they do in fairy tales, and that Prince Charming would fall madly
in love with Princess Scarlet from one look at the miniature."

"Isn't that how it happens?"

"Only in fairy tales."

"But thisis a fairy tale!"

"Not yet it isn't," Hermes said. "After it is all over and retold by a
bard,then it becomes a fairy tale. But for right now, that condition has not
been met. You can't simply show a young man a picture and expect him to fall
in love with it. You must use psychology."

"Is that a special spell?" Azzie asked.

Hermes shook his smoky head. "It is what we call a science. It is the science
of human behavior. There's nothing like it in the world yet. That's why
everyone is so wonky. No one knows why they do what they do because there's no
psychology."

"Well, what do I do?"

"The first thing is to wipe out Charming's memories of 'your telling him
about Scarlet. A small dose of Lethe water ought to do the trick. Not a great
deal, just enough so that he will forget your recent conversation with him."

"And then?"

"Then I will tell you what to do next."

There was no trouble procuring Lethe water. Hermes brought it in a small
crystal flask, and Azzie administered it to Charming. That evening, Azzie and
Prince Charming dined together in the big walnut-paneled dining room. Frike
served, splashing the soup as usual because of the way he lurched when
walking. When the smoking joint had been taken away and the cream tarts eaten,
Azzie said, "By the way, Prince, I shall be going out of town for a while."

"Where are you going, Uncle?"

"I have some business to attend to."

"What business, Uncle?"

"My business is none of your business. Frike! Bring me the keys!"

Frike scuttled off and crabbed back with a big bunch of keys set around an
iron ring.

"Now pay attention, Prince. I am leaving the keys of the manor in your
keeping. This big one is for the front door. The small one opens the back
door, and the other small one opens the stable. Here is the key to the cellar

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where we keep the wine, the beer, and the preserved meats. The one with the
curlicues opens my chest of spells. You can play with them if you like;
they're not currently armed."

"Yes, Uncle." Charming took the keys. One caught his eye, a small silver key
with elaborate arabesques around its haft.

"What about this one?" Charming asked.

"Ah," Azzie said, "that one. Did I leave that on the key ring?"

"Yes, you did, Uncle."

"Well, don't use it."

"But what is it?"

"It opens the small door at the far end of my sleeping chamber. And then,
using the other end, it opens a small brass-bound oaken chest in that room.
But you must not go through that door and you must not open the chest."

"Why not, Uncle?"

"It would take too long to explain," Azzie said.

"I have time," Charming said.

"Of course you do. You have nothing but time, have you? But I do not have any
time. I must be off immediately. Just take my word for it, there will be a bad
result if you open that door. So don't do it."

"Yes, Uncle."

"Scout's honor?"

Charming held up his right hand in the salute of the Scouts of Knighthood, a
new organization for young knights in train-ing. "I swear, Uncle."

"Good boy. And now I must be off. Farewell, lad."

"Farewell, Uncle."

Charming accompanied him to the stables, where Azzie mounted a fiery Arabian.

"Softly now, Belshazzar!" Azzie cried. "Farewell, nephew. I'll see you in a
couple of days, a week at the outside."

Charming and Frike both waved until Azzie was out of sight.

An hour later (a short hour, since the glass ran fast) Charm-ing said to
Frike, "I'm bored."

"Another game of Rheumie?" Frike asked, shuffling the cards.

"No, I'm tired of card games."

"What would you like to do then, young sir? Lawn tennis? Quoits? Push and
shove?"

"I'm sick of all those namby-pamby pastimes," Charming said. "Can't you think

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of anything interesting?"

"Hunting?" Frike suggested. "Fishing? Kite flying?"

"No, no . . ." Prince Charming narrowed his eyes, then looked up. His
features took on a look of animation. "I know!"

"I await your pleasure, sire."

"Let's go peek in the room I'm not supposed to look into."

Frike had been well schooled. Concealing the smile that threatened to break
out, he said, "We couldn't do that!"

"Could we not, now?"

"Certainly not, sire. The master would be dreadfully cross."

"But he wouldn't have to know, would he?"

Frike's expression revealed that he had never thought of that. "You mean . .
. not tell him?"

"That is precisely what I mean."

"But we always tell the master everything!"

"Let's make an exception this time."

"But why?"

"For a game, Frike, that's why."

"Oh ... A game." Frike seemed to ponder. "I suppose that would be all right,
if it's only a game. Are you sure it's a game?"

"Frike, I swear to you, it is only a game."

"Well then," Frike said, "so long as it's only a game."

"Let's go!" Charming cried, bounding up the stairs four at a time, the keys
jingling in his hand.

Outside the manor house, Azzie, who had parked his horse in the wood and
returned on foot, or rather, on wing, since he had fully operational wings
beneath his resplendent tunic, hov-ered above the high bedroom window and
smiled to himself. He had never heard of this psychology stuff Hermes had
spoken about, but it was going all right so far.

Chapter 4

Ylith was just tucking a blanket about Princess Scarlet, who had dropped off
to sleep in mid-conversation with her, when the knocking oc-curred upon the
castle gate. It was not like Azzie to knock, and Ylith could not imagine any

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other visitor, there atop the glass mountain. Leaving the girl in the leather
arms of the huge chair, she moved quickly out of the sitting room and headed
for the castle's main hall. The sound came again as she traversed the
high-ceilinged stone room.

She unlatched the normal-sized postern door beside the big gate, opened it,
and looked outside. A tall, not uncomely figure, clad in white and gold,
returned her gaze and smiled.

"Yes?" she said.

"Am I correct in assuming this to be the castle of the Napping Beauty,
Princess Scarlet?" he inquired.

"You are," she replied. "But you can't be Prince Charming, can you? It's a
little early, and those aren't the right eyes -not that I have anything
against big blue ones, mind you."

"Oh, no," he answered. "My name's Babriel. I'm the ob-server for the Powers
of Light. I'm a guest of Azzie's and I just thought I'd pop over and check out
this end of the operation. Is everything proceeding in good fashion?"

"Why, yes," she said. "Won't you come in?"

"Thank you, I will," he replied.

"I'm Azzie's-associate," she said, "in this matter. My name's Ylith. Glad to
make your acquaintance."

She offered a hand. He raised it and pressed it to his lips.

"Oh," she remarked, staring at her hand after he released it. "Uh, come this
way. I'll take you to see the lady. She's napping now, of course."

"Of course," he replied, seeming to realize suddenly that he was still
holding her hand and releasing it quickly, "if it is convenient."

"Certainly, certainly."

She turned and led him across the hall.

"Nice hall," he observed.

"Thanks."

"You and Azzie been together long?"

"Oh, we go way back. But we're not exactly-together- right now. Except on
this project, I mean."

"Clever entry you have."

"I suppose so. It's all Azzie's idea. I'm just helping him out, for old
times' sake."

"I see. Brotherhood of Evil and all that," he said. "Sister-hood, too, of
course," he corrected quickly.

"Sort of. This way," she said, leading him out of the hall and into the
sitting room. "There she is. Napping Beauty. Pretty, huh?"

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"Lovely," he remarked.

Ylith blushed as she realized he was looking at her. Im-mediately, he
suffered a coughing spell.

"May I get you something to drink?" she offered. "A little ichor, perhaps?"

"Please."

"Have a seat. Be comfortable."

She hurried off, returning in a few moments with a pair of drinks.

"Here. Thought I'd join you," she said.

"Thank you."

He sipped it slowly. She seated herself nearby.

"I take it the project goes well," Babriel repeated after a time.

"Oh, Azzie has his problems, I understand," she answered.

"You must be a great help and comfort to him."

"I wouldn't know," she replied. "He's been somewhat un-communicative. "

"I don't understand."

"The last time we talked he was a trifle -cold. It may be he has more
problems than I realize, or it may just be -"

"What?"

"That he's just that way - to me."

They sipped their ichor in silence for a time. Then: "It is in the nature of
evil to be nasty, I guess," Babriel observed. "Even to its friends and
allies."

Ylith looked away.

"He wasn't always like that, to me."

"Oh."

"Your side is nicer about these things, I suppose."

"I'd like to think so."

"But then you have to be. . . . The nature of things."

"I suppose. But I like to think that we do it because we really want to. It
just makesus feel good."

"Hmm." She turned toward Princess Scarlet. "Look at her," she said. "Poor
thing has no notion that she's only a counter in a game."

"But she wouldn't exist, save for that."

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"Still, it might be better than being used."

"An interesting theological point."

"Theological, hell! Excuse me. But people aren't things, to be manipulated
that way."

"No, they have free will. So she's still her own person. That's what makes
this whole thing interesting."

"Free? Even when the choices are artificially narrowed?"

"That's another interesting theological point-that is, yes, I suppose it
isn't very nice. Still, what's to be done? She really is something of a game
piece."

"I guess so. I can't help feeling a bit sorry for her, though."

"Oh, I do, too. We're big on sympathy."

"Is that all? I mean, it doesn't help her much."

"But we're not allowed to help in this. Though now you mention it, I suppose
I could recommend her for some grace."

"Wouldn't that be cheating, helping her?"

"Not really. Grace sort of helps without helping, if you know what I mean. It
kind of helps you to help yourself. I can't see that as cheating. Yes, maybe I
should. ..."

Another sip.

"Have you always been that way?" she asked.

"What way?"

"Kind."

"I suppose so."

"How refreshing. It makes it easier having you as the observer."

"Have you always been a witch?"

"It was a career choice, a long time ago."

"Enjoyable?"

"Most of the time. What sort of entry does the Power of Light have going?"

"Oh, we're calling it a Gothic cathedral-a radically new concept in the
architecture of devotion and goodness."

"How does it differ from the regular variety? Here, let me freshen your
drink."

"Thanks."

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When she returned, he began explaining Gothic cathe-drals. She smiled and
nodded regularly, fascinated.

Chapter 5

Scarlet paced before Ylith.

"I'm getting so sick of napping," she said.

She continued to pace.

"I'm never fully awake, it seems, and I can't get a good night's sleep
either. I need to do something more than stay here in this stupid castle
waiting for some guy to come along and wake me up. I want to get out of here!
I want to talk to someone!"

"You can talk to me," Ylith replied.

"Oh, Aunt Ylith, you're very nice. I'd be completely out of my mind if you
weren't here. But I'd like to talk to someone else. You know ... a man."

"I wish I could help you," Ylith said. "But you know you're not supposed to
have any company. You're just supposed to sleep until Prince Charming gets
here."

"I know, I know," Scarlet said. Tears filled her eyes. "But it's so boring,
just sleeping all the time. And not even sleeping well. Napping! Oh, please,
Aunt Ylith, isn't there some way you can help me?"

Ylith considered. She felt more irritated with Azzie than before. She should
have known better than to trust him again. Still, there was nothing she could
do about it now.

The following day, there came a knocking at the gate: it came during one of
Scarlet's rare moments of wakefulness, and she rushed down to open it herself.

Standing at the door was a six-foot frog dressed in foot-man's livery, with a
white peruke slightly askew on his warty green head.

"Hello," Scarlet said calmly. She was getting quite used to enchanted
visitations. After talking with Azzie-who was very strange, in his
puff-of-smoke comings and goings-and Ylith, who spent considerable time before
a magic mirror, ob-serving the townspeople at the foot of the mountain, as
well as points distant (including the nether regions and lower astral
realms)-nothing could surprise her. "Are you the Prince who's supposed to
awaken me?"

"Heavens no!" the frog said. "I am a messenger."

"But underneath the frog disguise you're really a handsome young man, aren't
you?"

"Afraid not," he replied. "I've been enchanted to possess the power of human
speech and made to be six feet tall."

"What are you like when you're not enchanted?"

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"I'm six inches tall and I croak."

"What do you want? "

"I have an invitation for you."

He held out a square of cardboard upon which letters had been embossed:

YOU ARE INVITED TO A CELEBRATION

MASKED BALL IN HONOR OF

CINDERELLA AND HER PRINCE

MUSIC BY ORLANDO AND THE FURIOSOS

GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE HERMETIC TRADITION

SPARTACUS AND THE REVOLTING SLAVES

CHARADES, DOOR PRIZES

TASTEFUL REVELRY

"Oh, thank you!" Scarlet said. "But why did Princess "Cinderella ask me? I
don't even know her."

"She heard that you are alone here and is sympathetic to your plight. She's
had her own problems, you know."

"I'd love to go! But I have no ballroom gown."

"Surely you can get one."

"And transport . . . How would I get there?"

"Merely contact Enchanted Ball Caterers, and at the proper time they will
dispatch me with a coach fashioned out of a pumpkin."

"Oh. But won't I get pumpkin juice on my gown?"

"Not a chance of it. The interior is upholstered in rarest watered silk."

"Watered?"

"It's dry, don't worry."

"Thank you! Thank you!" Scarlet rushed off to tell Ylith about the wonderful
invitation.

"Faith, child, Azzie has a spell over this whole place," Ylith replied. "It
would take a plenipotentiary pass to get you out of here. And that, only the
Powers of Darkness can supply."

"But what can I do?"

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"Nothing, poor dear," she mused. "Though if you had Azzie's unlimited credit
card, then a lot would be possible. And he keeps it so carelessly, too, in the
upper pocket of his waist-coat. You'll just have to hope that he drops it when
he visits you next, and that you can pick it up before he misses it."

"But what if he doesn't drop it?"

"Your own hands can help you," Ylith said. "Especially the left one."

Scarlet looked at her hands. The left one, the pickpocket's hand, was
slightly smaller than the right one, and looked, she didn't know how to say
it, somehow moreAy than its near mate.

"What is it about my left hand? I can see it's small and I suppose dainty.
But what of it?"

"That hand has a skill for getting what you need."

"And if I had the card?"

"Why then," Ylith said, "you could call up a ballroom gown and get an order
through to the Enchanted Ball Caterers. Then you could go to the ball, so long
as you came straight back."

"Why are you telling me these things?"

Ylith looked away.

"Anger and pity, my dear," she said at length. "The first is a strength and
the second a weakness. So think of it mainly as the first. And it is time that
you learned about balls. And free will."

She patted Princess Scarlet's hand, which half succeeded in removing a
jeweled ring as she was about it.

"Yes," she continued. "The hell with Azzie." And she smiled. "That's grace
for you."

Chapter 6

The next time Azzie came to call, Princess Scarlet was all smiles. She
chattered about her dreams, which were the only interesting things in her
daily life. She showed Azzie dance steps she remembered from before her death.
She danced tempestuously, her little feet stamping on the floor in the figures
of the Seguriyas, and she ended in a whirl of move-ment as she pirouetted
across the room and collapsed into Az-zie's arms. "Let me embrace you, Uncle,
you have done so much for me!"

Azzie felt her small pointy breasts pressing into his chest, and thought not
at all of what her clever little fingers were doing.

Ylith said, once she was alone with Scarlet, "Do you have it?"

Scarlet smiled, showing her even little teeth and the dim-ples in the corner
of each cheek. She held up the black card. "Here it is!"

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"Well done," Ylith said. "Now you have only to use it."

"Yes," Scarlet said, trying to stifle a yawn. "But what will I do about this
damnable napping spell?"

"Have a good stiff slug of ichor," Ylith replied. "I'll add a spell. You'll
sleep three or four times longer than usual, then be awake another three or
four times as long afterward."

Scarlet brightened.

"Hurry," she said.

Chapter 7

The pumpkin coach glided upto the canopied reception area, moving silently on
its radish wheels. The frog foot-man hopped out and opened the door for
Scarlet. She stepped out, taking care not to mess her gown. It was a beautiful
thing, pink tulle with a sprig of hyacinth, created especially for her by
Michael of Perugia and charged to Azzie's account.

Uniformed attendants welcomed her and led her inside. The ballroom was a
blaze of color and light. At the far end was the orchestra. Princess Scarlet
was dazzled. Never had she seen a spectacle such as this. It was like
something out of a fairy tale, and the fact that she herself was something out
of a fairy tale made it no less wonderful.

"You must be Princess Scarlet!" Scarlet was being ad-dressed by a radiantly
beautiful young woman of about her own age.

"Are you Princess Cinderella?" Scarlet said.

"How did you recognize me? Do I have soot on my nose?"

"Oh, no ... I just assumed . . . having gotten your invi-tation. . . ."
Scarlet was filled with confusion, but Cinderella laughed and put her at ease.
"It was just my little jest! I am so glad you could come. I heard you are
under a sleeping spell."

"Actually it's a napping spell. But how did you hear about it?"

"Word gets around in the domain of fairy tales," Cinderella said. "If you
should need them, we have resting rooms upstairs, and a variety of stimulants
if your spell responds to chemical means."

"No need," Scarlet said. "I was able to get a temporary rescindment."

"However you did it, I am very glad you could come. This is the debutante
event of the season, you know. We have many eligible bachelors here, mostly of
the nobility, but also a few enterprising and famous commoners like Jack of
the Beanstalk and Peer Gynt. Come, let me get you a glass of champagne and
introduce you to some people."

Cinderella gave Scarlet a foaming glass of champagne and, taking her hand,
led her around from one group of gorgeously dressed people to the next.

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Scarlet's head was awhirl, and the music - loud, rhythmic-was setting her
dancer's toes to tap-ping. She was pleased when a tall, dark, handsome man in
a gold lamé suit and crimson turban asked her to dance.

They whirled around the dance floor. The turbaned man introduced himself as
Achmed Ali. He was a fine dancer, con-versant with the newest steps. Scarlet
had a dancer's quick instinct for dance steps, and so she soon found herself
doing the straddle duck, the limping elbow, the pigmy hop, the de-lirious
dogleg, and the double wolverine, all dance sensations of that eventful year
of the Millennium. Achmed Ali seemed to float across the floor, matching her
consummate skill with his own scarcely inferior efforts. The other dancers
moved back to clear a space for them, so obviously superior were they to the
common lot. The orchestra segued intoSwan Lake, so balletic was the spectacle
before them. Around and around Scarlet and Achmed whirled while the trumpets
blasted and the steel guitars whined, turning ever more daring pas de deux,
whirling, tap-ping, stamping, as the applause mounted. At last, for the
finale, Achmed Ali danced her out of the ballroom and onto a little balcony.

The balcony overlooked a little lake. The moon had just risen, and little
silvery ripples moved slowly toward the dark shore. Princess Scarlet fanned
herself with the Chinese fan that Supply had provided and, turning to Achmed
Ali, said in formal tones, "Belike, sir, I've not seen thy match for overall
all-in dancing eftsoons."

"Nor I thine," Achmed answered gallantly. His face, which was spread neatly
along either side of his hawk nose, had firm, finely cut lips of pale pink
behind which teeth of a nacreous white could be seen when he smiled or lifted
his lip in the small sneer with which he expressed emotion. He told Scarlet
that he was a prince from the court of the Grand Turk, whose lands stretched
from the misty frontier of eastern Turkestan to the sea-shrouded coastline of
hither Asia. He described the splendor of the Grand Turk's palace, which had
so many rooms that they were uncountable save by those skilled in mathematical
necromancy. He told her of the palace's main features, the carp ponds, the
mineral springs, the great library where could be found writings from all over
the world. He mentioned the kitch-ens where delicacies of unusual splendor
were prepared every day for the delectation of the ensemble of happy and
talented young people who made up the court. He told her how she would dazzle
all of the beauties of that court with the previously unheard-of splendor of
her delicate and finely proportioned features. He declared that he, despite
their short acquain-tanceship, was utterly and entirely smitten with her, and
begged her to accompany him so he could show her the splendors of the Grand
Turk's domain and, if she so desired, stay on for a while. He described the
luxurious presents that he would shower on her, and he went on in that vein
and similar veins and tendentious arteries of teasing promises for so long
that the Princess' head was turned and turned again.

"I would like to go with you and see these things," Princess Scarlet said.
"But I promised my aunt that I would return home immediately after the ball."

"No problem," Achmed said. He snapped his fingers. There was a flapping sound
in the air, and Princess Scarlet beheld a large and luxurious Persian carpet
which had come seemingly from nowhere and hovered now at the level of the
balcony.

"This is a flying carpet," Achmed said. "It is a common means of transport in
my land, and by utilizing it I can take you to the Grand Turk's court, show
you around, and return you to this very spot before the evening is out."

"It is very tempting, "Scarlet said. "But I really shouldn't. ..."

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Achmed Ali smiled a subtle smile of incredible attractive-ness and stepped
from the balcony onto the carpet. He turned to Scarlet, extending his hand.

"Come with me, beautiful princess," he said. "I am crazy about you and I will
show you a very good time and respect you throughout and I will have you back
here in plenty of time to return to your esteemed aunt as you had originally
planned."

Princess Scarlet knew she shouldn't. But the unexpected freedom, the
temporary relief from the napping spell, the gran-deur of the ball, the
mysterious and tantalizing presence of Achmed Ali, the glass of unaccustomed
champagne, and the perfume of the Mater Delirium plant that grew beneath the
balcony all combined to make her senses reel and cause a feeling of boldness
to come over her. Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she accepted Achmed's
hand and stepped onto the carpet.

Chapter 8

Cinderella was just about to go to the sumptuous buffet and get herself
another glass of champagne, and per-haps a plate of sherbet, too, when a
footman came up to her, bowed low, and said, "There is a someone, Princess,
who wishes to converse with you."

"A man?"

"A demon, I opine, though manlike for all of that."

"A demon," Cinderella mused. "I don't remember asking any demons."

"I believe he came on his own recognizance, Princess," said the footman,
straining to find enough time to mention that he, the footman, was himself a
prince in disguise.

"What does he want?"

"I do not know," the footman said, brushing his wrist against his luxuriant
mustache. "He claims it is a matter of great importance."

This exchange might have gone on longer if at that moment Azzie hadn't come
striding up with two doormen clinging to his coattails trying to restrain him.

Azzie gave a shrug that sent them sprawling, and said, "You are Cinderella?"

"Yes, I am."

"And this is your party?"

"Yes, it is. And in case you're thinking of crashing it, I have demons of my
own whom I can call up at a moment's notice."

"It seems that you invited my niece, Princess Scarlet, to your festivities."

Cinderella glanced around. Several of the guests seemed to be taking an
interest in the conversation, and the footman was still hanging around
twirling his ridiculous mustache as he tried to insert himself and his bogus
credentials into the pro-ceedings.

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"Come over here to the secret bower," Cinderella said. "There we can talk
quietly."

They walked to the bower.

"You can put your broomsticks in the corner," Cinderella said.

"I think I'll hold on to them. Enough small talk. Where's Scarlet?"

"Are you really her uncle? You shouldn't have left the child alone so long in
that enchanted castle. I didn't think it would do any harm to invite her to my
party."

"Where is she right now?" Azzie said, his foot tapping ominously.

Cinderella looked around, but she couldn't see Scarlet. She called over a
footman - another one, not the one with the mus-tache-this one had a little
goatee-and told him to find Prin-cess Scarlet.

In a moment the footman hurried back. "I am told she left with the turbaned
gentleman, Achmed Ali."

Azzie turned to the footman. "How did they depart?"

"By flying carpet, milord."

Azzie rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "And in what direction did they
head?"

"Due east, milord."

"Do you know who this man is?" he asked Cinderella.

"He's a nobleman from the courts of the Grand Turk, ruler of all Turkestan."

"Is that all you know?"

"Know you somethingal contrario?"

"Did he tell you his court position?"

"No, not specifically."

"He is the Chief Procurer for the Seraglio of the Grand Turk."

"How do you know this?"

"I make it my business to know such things," Azzie said.

"Procurer! Surely you don't mean - "

"I mean," Azzie said, "that Princess Scarlet is at this very moment being
transported across international boundaries for purposes of white slavery and
imperial prostitution."

"I had no idea!" Princess Cinderella said. "Where is my grand vizier? Strike
Achmed Ali's name from the guest list! Put a double line through it! My dear
demon, I can't tell you how sorry I am-"

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But she was talking to herself. Azzie had already leaped to the rail of the
balcony and, pausing only to activate the brooms' drive mechanisms, soared off
onto the ambient air, going east, due east.

Flying carpets are swift, powered as they are by the strongest spells of
mighty djinns. But they are not aerodynamically ef-ficient and tend to be
unstable. The leading edge of a carpet in flight invariably curls up like the
front of a toboggan and pro-vides an airfoil that slows flight. Still, Achmed
was making good time. As for Scarlet, she had started to think about her
situation and found it a little less delicious than she had earlier. As she
looked at Achmed, sitting tailor fashion at the carpet's controls, she noticed
the cruel lines etched down his face, which somehow she had overlooked
earlier, and the angry way his black mustache curled down and then back up
again, termi-nating in needle-sharp waxed points. It occurred to her that she
had been just a touch precipitous when she had accepted this invitation. It
was only then that she thought about Prince Charming, her intended. He might
even now be entering the enchanted castle. What if he arrived and didn't find
her and went away and found someone else? Would she be doomed to live alone
under the napping spell for the rest of her life? Was there any salvation for
Napping Beauties who have the bad luck not to be found by their Prince
Charmings? And anyhow, what was she getting herself into and was this Achmed
really sincere?

"Achmed," she said, "I have changed my mind."

"Indeed?" Achmed said, in an offhand way.

"I want to go back to Cinderella's party now."

"The Grand Turk's court is just a little way from here," Achmed said.

"I don't care! I want to turn back right now!"

Achmed turned to her, and now his face was ugly with machismo, self-pride,
hatred, bad faith, as well as a touch of pusillanimity. "Little Princess, you
have chosen this adventure, and now there is no turning back."

"Why are you doing this? " she asked. "There comes a time when only the truth
will suffice.

"It is my job," he replied, "and my master, the Grand Turk, will reward me
well for adding you to his seraglio. Need I put it any clearer?"

"I'm not going to any seraglio! I'll die first!" Scarlet said. She moved to
the edge of the carpet. Peering over, she saw, far below, the isles of Greece,
dark lumps in a milk-white sea. She decided that things weren't so extreme as
to warrant sui-cide, at least not yet.

She shrank back to the middle of the carpet, already mourning the handsome
young prince who she seemed destined now never to meet. She brushed back her
long hair, which was getting ratty from the wind, and saw, behind her-for that
was the direction in which she turned in order to ease a crink in her neck-a
tiny speck in the sky moving directly toward them. The speck grew, and hope
blossomed in Scarlet's heart, and she turned away so as not to betray her
emotions or her dis-covery to Achmed.

Azzie, driving the two broomsticks at full throttle, saw the flying carpet
ahead of him, outlined fantastically against the full moon, and he closed in,

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his eyes slitted against the airstream. His rage seemed to power the
broomsticks even faster. He gained rapidly on the flying carpet, and then,
coming up behind and above it, nosed the broomsticks over into a power dive.

The first thing Achmed Ali knew about this was when he heard a great sound
that surpassed even the roar of the slipstream and, turning, saw a fox-faced
demon astride two blazing broom-sticks, diving down on him from above. Achmed
threw the carpet into a sideslip, hanging on to Scarlet with one hand as the
carpet fell through the sky. Scarlet shrieked because they seemed certain to
crash. But Achmed pulled out only a few feet above the shining sea. He turned
the carpet to bring its spell-powered thunderbolts into play. Not for the
first time did he wish he had the new super thunderbolts, but the Grand Turk,
profligate in matters concerning his seraglio, was stingy when it came to
updating the armament of his flying carpets.

Before Achmed Ali could bring his standard-issue weapons to bear, Azzie was
firing at him with jagged lightning bolts, the short, explosive, painful kind.
Achmed dodged and swerved, but the bolts of lightning came closer and closer,
singeing the edges of the carpet and spoiling its meager airflow
character-istics. Achmed found that no matter how hard he tugged, the web and
woof lines would no longer control the craft. The carpet tilted precipitously
and Achmed had to grab an edge with both hands. Released from his grip,
Princess Scarlet slid to the edge of the carpet, now tilted almost to the
perpendicular, over the side, and into the air.

She fell, and so great was her terror that not even a scream could come out
of her paralyzed lips. The sea came up fast, and there was a steep little
island in the middle of it rising at her with incredible rapidity.

Death seemed certain. But at the last possible moment, as the needle-pointed
rock pinnacles were reaching for her with hard granite fingers, Azzie swooped
beneath her and scooped her up, draping her over the broomsticks like a sack
of flour on a terrestrial pack animal. Scarlet could feel the g-forces build
as Azzie barrel-rolled around the mountain and tried to break out of the dive
that seemed sure to take them into the white-mouthed sea. And then he had
pulled them out of it, and they were soaring into the air again, safe!

"Oh, Uncle Azzie," Scarlet said, "I'm so glad to see you! I was so
frightened!"

"You were very naughty," Azzie said. "If it weren't so late in the game, I'd
let you go to the Grand Turk's seraglio and make myself a new Princess
Scarlet. My young Prince deserves a faithful heart!"

Scarlet said, "I'll never run away again, I promise. I'll nap quietly in my
chamber and await his coming."

"At least a moral point about obedience has been made from all this," Azzie
said, and turned the broomsticks in the direction of the enchanted castle.

Chapter 9

After recovering his credit card and putting Princess Scarlet back where she
belonged, Azzie continued on to Paris, long one of his favorite cities. He had
decided to stay away from Augsburg for a few days in order to give Prince
Charming a chance to moon over the miniature of Prin-cess Scarlet which he had

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been forbidden to touch, and so fall in love with her according to the rules
of psychology.

What better way to pass some time than in riotous living in one of the
satanic clubs that Paris was famous for even then?

The one he chose, the Heliogabulus Club, was in a cave under Paris. After
going down an endless flight of stone stairs, he came out in a grotto
furnished with skulls and skeletons. Torches flamed in their iron
wall-holders, casting gloomy shad-ows here and there. The tables were
sarcophagi brought in by some ingenious entrepreneur from Egypt, where they
have a never-ending supply of them. Coffins of the more ordinary sort served
as chairs. Drinks were served by menials dressed in priests' cassocks and
nuns' habits. These wretches also served as complaisant bodies for the orgies
that climaxed most eve-nings' entertainments. Sex and death: it was one of
Europe's first theme bars.

"What'll you have?" a heavyset man in priest's garb asked Azzie.

"Give me an expensive imported beer," Azzie told him. "And do you have
anything to eat?"

"Nachos," the servitor said.

"What are they?"

"Something which François the Expeditious brought back from the New World."

So Azzie had the nachos, which turned out to be oat chips covered in a smelly
Camembert with tomato sauce over them. He washed them down with a piggard of
dark ale imported from England and started feeling better at once.

As Azzie was eating he had the feeling that someone was watching him. He
began looking around the room. There was a table in a far corner which was
dark, unlighted even by a candle. He could perceive movement in the gloom. The
sense of being watched seemed to emanate from there.

Azzie decided to ignore it at first. He ordered up another plate of nachos
and switched to wine. After a while he began to grow tipsy. Then, as the
evening rollicked on, Azzie became drunk. Not just pig drunk, but demon drunk.
That was very drunk indeed. He began to sing a little song that demons from
Canaan sing when they are having a good time. The lines went:

Oh, I am feeling no pain

And I haven't any name

For the fine old fun

That often doth come

When I'm drunk and feeling no pain.

The song had several other verses, but he was having difficulty remembering
them, or, indeed, anything else. It was very late. He had the feeling he'd
been in this place a long time. Looking around, he saw that the other patrons

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had fled. What had they put into his wine? He was dizzy now; far more than
tipsy, he was staggering drunk. There was an odd feeling in the pit of his
stomach, and he wasn't sure he could stand up. Finally, with great
deliberation, he brought himself to his feet. "Who's doing this to me?" he
said, but the words came out all garbled.

"Hello there, Azzie," a voice said behind him.

Azzie had the feeling he'd heard this voice before. He tried to turn around.
But just then something heavy crashed into the back of his head, near the left
ear, always a delicate spot in demons. Normally he could throw off the effects
of a blow like that. You don't put a demon down easily. But this time,
com-bined with the strong spirits and with whatever somebody may have mixed
into the drink, he had no resistance. Damnation! He had gotten himself into a
spot. And that was all he thought at the moment, because he passed out so
quickly he wasn't aware of doing so until much later.

Chapter 10

Azzie awoke some undetermined time later. He came back to consciousness
groggily and not too happily. He had a hangover which was monumental in its
size and extent. He tried to roll over to ease the aching in his head and
found that he could only move slightly. His arms seemed to be tied. Also his
legs. And he himself was strapped to a very large chair.

He opened his eyes two or three times, experimentally, then opened them
definitively and looked around. He was in a sort of underground grotto. He
could see the walls of the cave, shining with phosphorescence from the mica in
the rocks.

"Hello!" he called. "Is anyone there?"

"Oh, yes, I'm here all right," a voice said.

Azzie strained and after a while perceived a figure in the gloom. It was a
small figure, and it had a beard. He recognized the features, such features as
were visible under all the facial hair.

"Rognir!" For it was indeed the dwarf whom he had gotten to give him the
felixite and his treasure.

"Greetings, Azzie," Rognir said. His voice was bright with malice. "Not
feeling too good?"

"Not exactly good, no," Azzie said. "But never mind, I've got great powers of
recuperation. I seem to be entangled in something that is holding me to this
chair. If you would kindly release me, and give me a drink of water, I think
I'd be quite all right."

"Release you?" Rognir said. His laughter was scornful, as the laughter of
dwarves so often is. Others joined in, following it up with mutterings.

"Who are you talking to?" Azzie asked. Now that his eyes were growing more
accustomed to things, he could see that there were other figures in the cavern
with him and Rognir. They were small men, dwarves all, and their eyes
glittered as they stood in a ring, peering up at him.

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"These are dwarves of my tribe," Rognir said. "I could make introductions,
but why bother? You aren't going to be here long enough for small talk and
amusing conversation."

"But what is this all about?" Azzie said, though he had a pretty good idea.

"You owe me, that's what it's about," Rognir said.

"I know that. But is this any way to discuss it?"

"Your servant wouldn't allow us in when we came to talk to you about it."

"That Frike," Azzie said with a chuckle. "He's so protec-tive."

"Perhaps he is. But I want my money. And I'm here to collect. Immediately. At
this moment."

Azzie shrugged. "You've probably already gone through my pockets. You know I
don't have anything on me but small change and a spare charm or two."

"You don't even have that anymore," Rognir said. "We took them away."

"Then what more do you want?"

"Payment! I want not only the profit you promised me on my treasure, but the
treasure itself back."

Azzie gave a small, amused laugh. "My dear fellow! There was no need for all
this. As a matter of fact, I'd come to Paris for the purpose of finding you
and telling you how well your investment was doing."

"Hah!" Rognir said, an expletive which could have meant anything but probably
implied disbelief.

"Come now, Rognir, there's no need of this. Release me and we'll talk it over
like gentlemen."

"You are no gentleman," Rognir said. "You are a demon."

"And you're a dwarf," Azzie said. "But you know what I mean."

"I want my money."

"You seem to have forgotten that the deal was for a year," Azzie said. "The
time's not up. You're doing well. When the time runs out you'll get your
capital back."

"I've been thinking this over, and I've decided that I don't trust the notion
of putting one's capital out to work this way. It seems it might do something
terrible to the working classes - like us dwarves. You know, a jewel in the
sack is worth two or three on some foreign market that might go bust."

"A deal's a deal," Azzie said, "and you agreed to let me have it for a year."

"Well, I'm disagreeing now. I want my poke back."

"I can't do anything for you tied up like this," Azzie said.

"But if we release you, you'll pop out a spell and that'll be it for us and

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our money."

That was exactly what Azzie had been planning. To turn attention away from
it, he said, "What is this 'us' stuff? Why are these other dwarves involved?"

"They're my partners in this venture," Rognir said. "Maybe you can talk
around me, but you won't get around them so easily."

One of the dwarves came forward. He was short even for a dwarf, and his beard
was white except around the mouth, where it was stained yellow from chewing
tobacco.

"I am Elgar," he said. "You have hoodwinked this sim-pleminded dwarf Rognir,
but you're not going to get away with that with us. Give us back our money
immediately. Or else."

"I told you,"Azzie said. "I can't do anything with both my arms tied. I can't
even blow my nose."

"Why would you want to blow your nose?" Elgar said. "It's not running."

"It was a figure of speech," Azzie said. "What I meant-"

"We know what you meant," Elgar said. "You're not going to put anything over
on us. We have plans for you, my fine friend, since you can't pay."

"I can pay, but not trussed to a chair like this!" He smiled in a winning
manner. "Untie me and give me a chance to go after some funds. I'll come right
back, and I'll swear any oath you please to that effect."

"You're not going anywhere," Elgar said. "If we give you an inch, you'll be
all over us with your damnable enchantments. No, you have a count of three to
produce everything you owe to Rognir. One, two, three. No money? That's that,
then."

"What do you mean?" Azzie asked. "What's what?"

"You're for it, that's what's what."

"For what?"

Elgar turned to the others. "Okay, boys, let's take him to the Wheel of
Labor."

That was something Azzie had never heard of before. But it looked as if he
were going to learn soon what it was. Small horny hands, lots of them, lifted
the chair with Azzie in it and bore it deeper into the cavern.

Chapter 11

The dwarves sang as they went down the tunnel, deeper and deeper into the
bowels of the earth, around doglegs and over camelbacks, skirting cul-de-sacs
and precipices and wading across icy streams. It was so dark that Azzie's eyes
began to ache from trying too hard to see something. They went on, and they
sang other songs after a while, songs in a language Azzie did not understand,
and at last they came to an opening which let out onto a large underground

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plain.

"Where's this?" Azzie asked. They ignored him. Many little hands held him
tight as they untied him from the chair and tied him to something else. By
touch Azzie thought it was a framework of some sort, made of metal and bits of
wood. When he tried to take a step, something moved under his feet. He
realized after a few moments that he had been tied securely to the inside of a
big wheel, like a waterwheel. His feet were free, but his hands were securely
bound to handles that came out of the wheel's sides.

"This," Rognir said, "is a work wheel. You walk inside it and it turns, and
through a series of gears, it moves a wheel that turns rods and finally
operates machinery in one of the upper chambers."

"Interesting," Azzie said. "But so what?"

"You are expected to walk on the wheel, thus turning it.

"You are expected to walk on the wheel, thus turning it. You will thus help
us work and you will pay off your debt that way. It should only take a few
hundred years."

"Forget it," Azzie said.

"Suit yourself," Rognir said. "All right, boys, open the sluice gate."

There was a grinding sound from overhead. Then some-thing started falling
from above him. It was a rain of excrement, as Azzie's nose quickly told him.
But it was not ordinary human or demonic excrement. Azzie had spent plenty of
time handling that. This was excrement of an orduosiry so extreme that his
nasal receptors tried to commit hara-kiri.

"What is that stuff?" he cried.

"Aged fermented dragon shit," Rognir told him. "We're close to a dragon's
lair, and we've tapped it from the bottom as an incentive for you to go to
work."

Azzie's feet started moving of their own accord. The wheel turned. After a
moment, the rain of dragon shit stopped.

"The way it works," Rognir said, "the dragon shit starts when you stop
treading, and continues until you start up again."

"But what about rest periods?" Azzie asked.

"We'll tell you when you can rest," Elgar said, and the other dwarves
laughed.

"But listen to me! I've got important things to do! You must let me out of
here so I can make arrangements! I'll pay you back - "

"You will indeed," Rognir said. "In kind or in labor. Check with you later,
demon."

And so the dwarves departed. Azzie was left alone, pump-ing and thinking
desperate thoughts.

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Chapter 12

Azzie walked, turning the wheel, annoyed at himself for not telling Frike
where he'd gone. He'd simply left the house, not giving his servant any
instructions. And now, just when there was great need for haste, because it
was time and past time for the adventure of Prince Charming to begin, he was
caught in the darkness beneath Pans and condemned to turn a wheel for a bunch
of stupid dwarves.

"Hi, there," a voice said. "Are you a demon?"

"Who's talking to me?"

"Look down near your right foot and you'll see me."

Azzie looked down and saw a worm about six inches long.

"You're a worm?"

"Yes, I'm a worm. You're a demon?"

"That is correct. And if you can help me, I can offer you a deal you can't
turn down."

"What is that?" the worm asked.

"If you'll help me get out of here, I'll make you king of the worms."

"Actually, we worms don't have a king. We have district leaders, and a high
council."

"I'll put you in charge of the council."

"First I have to become a district leader in order to become eligible."

"So all right, I'll make you a district leader. What's your name?"

"Elton Wormbrood. But my friends call me Tom."

"Okay, Tom, what about it? Will you help me?"

"I might. It's been pretty quiet down here. I just might help you in order to
relieve the tedium. Then again, I might not."

"Well, which is it going to be?"

"I'm not sure. Don't rush me. We worms are kind of sluggish thinkers."

"Sorry. Take your time. . . . Have you had enough time yet?"

"No, I haven't even begun to think about it."

Azzie controlled his impatience. "All right, take all the time you want. Call
me when you've decided."

The worm didn't reply.

"Is that all right?" Azzie asked.

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"Is what all right?"

"That you'll tell me when you've made up your mind."

"That sounds all right," the worm said. "But don't get your hopes up."

"Don't worry about it. I'll wait."

And so Azzie began to wait and continued turning the wheel. He could hear the
worm moving very softly about the chamber, now on the surface, now burrowing
under the earth and rock. Time passed. Azzie couldn't tell how much time. It
felt like an awful lot of it. What was annoying was that Azzie's chest itched.
An itch is a most uncommonly irritating thing when your hands are tied to a
wheel. Azzie found that by arching backward, he could just reach around to the
front with his tail. Carefully now, since his tail was very sharp-pointed,
Azzie scratched himself.

It felt wonderful. But annoyingly enough, there was some-thing which blocked
a really satisfying scratch. He worked the end of his tail carefully up and
around it. Yes, there it was. Clenching it in his tail, he brought it out
farther where he could see it. It was a couple of inches long and seemed to be
made of metal.

"I'm still thinking," the worm said.

"That's good," Azzie answered. He lowered his head and got the cord from
which the object hung up and over it. He lowered the object and touched it
with his fingertips, first re-tracting his claws for better tactile contact.
It seemed to be a key. Yes, itwas a key! Azzie remembered now. He had kept a
spare key to the castle hanging about his neck, where it would be safe no
matter how many times he changed his clothing. It was a common sort of key,
and it had a small red gem set into its handle. And inside the gem, he
remembered now, there was a small spell that he had put there and forgotten
about.

He said to the spell, "What is your name and what do you do?"

A tiny voice from the red gem said, "I am Dirigan. I open doorways."

"Gee, that's great," Azzie said. "How about getting these bindings off me?"

"Let me take a look at them," Dirigan said.

Azzie passed the key over his manacled hands. The light within the jewel
pulsed softly, throwing out a ruddy glow.

"I think I can do something about this." The jewel glowed more fiercely, then
died out. The manacles fell open.

Azzie's hands came free. "Now, guide me out."

The worm lifted his blunt head and said, "I'm still thinking.

"I wasn't talking to you," Azzie said.

"Oh. Just as well. Because I still haven't made up my mind."

"What mind?" Azzie muttered. With his hands free he felt strong, capable of
action again. He moved away from the wheel. Let the dragon shit rain down now!

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He was out of its way!

"Now," he said, "to find the way out. Spell, give me some light."

The jewel pulsed more brightly, throwing shadows across the cavern walls.
Azzie walked until he came to a branching of the ways. There were five
different directions he could go in. He asked the jewel, "What way should I
head now?"

"How should I know?" said the jewel. "I'm just a minor spell. And now I'm
used up."

The light faded out.

Azzie had heard about these underground branchings of the dwarves. They held
great menace, for often the tunnel floor was undercut so that someone passing
over them would fall through. Down below there were pits, noisome places
filled with nasty things. If he fell into one of those, he might never get
back up. And the worst of it was, Azzie, like many other demons, was virtually
immortal. He could stay in the deepest pit for ages, perhaps forever, alive
but bored, if no one came to bring him out. There were stories of demons who
had been buried by some misadventure or other. Some of them were said still to
be trapped underground, where they had been since earliest times.

He moved forward. He heard the worm rustle, then say, "That's not the right
way."

Azzie stepped back. "What way should I go?"

"I still haven't made up my mind whether to help you or not."

"You'd better decide pretty soon," Azzie said. "The offer isn't open
indefinitely."

"Oh, all right," Tom Wormbrood said. "I guess I'll help. Take the tunnel on
the farthest right."

Azzie did so. As soon as he entered it the ground gave way beneath his feet.
He was falling. He just had time to scream, "But you said this one was safe!"

"I lied!" the worm cried. "Ha-ha!"

Azzie was falling, falling.

But it was only a short drop. Five feet perhaps. And to his right was a metal
door, marked with a faintly phosphorescent EXIT.

Cursing, he pushed through.

Chapter 13

In Augsburg, Frike was wringing his hands, pacing up and down the front yard,
watching the sky for a sign of the return of his beloved master. Then he saw a
tiny dark speck, which resolved itself quickly into Azzie.

"Oh, master, at last you have returned!"

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"As quickly as Iwas able," Azziesaid. "I was detained by a family of dwarves,
a load of dragon manure, a work wheel, and a schizophrenic worm. I hope you
have had as pleasant a time and kept a watch on Prince Charming."

Frike's face twisted in sorrow. "I watched out for him, sire, as well as I
was able. Dragon manure?"

"Dragon manure. Did he break my stricture and go to the locked room
upstairs?"

"That he did, master."

"And once within it, did he find the small locked casket in the upper drawer
of my bureau in the closet?"

"He went to it at once, master," Frike said.

"And opening it, did he find the little miniature of the Princess Scarlet?"

"That he did, sire, that he did."

"Then why don't you tell me in your own ill-chosen words what transpired
next?"

"Well, sire, the Prince looked upon the visage of the Princess, then looked
away, then looked again. Holding the minia-ture in his left hand, he tugged at
his lip thoughtfully with his right. He cleared his throat, going 'ahem,
ahem,' like a man who knows not what to say yet feels under a compulsion to
say something. He set the miniature down very gently and turned and walked a
stride or two away. Then he returned and raised it again. Then he put it down,
looked away, and with his left hand this time, pulled gently at his upper
lip."

"This is a wonderful detailing, Frike," Azzie said. "But could you get to the
nitty-gritty, as the heart of the matter is sometimes described?"

"Most certainly, sir. After bemusing himself with repeated looks, or I could
more properly call them glances, at the portrait of the young lady in
question, he turned to me and said, 'Frike, this girl is a corker.' "

"Those were his words, eh?"

"His very words, sir. I didn't know what to respond to that, master, so I
made a low bestial noise deep in my throat, figuring the young man could
interpret it in any way he pleased. Was that all right, sire?"

"Very judicious, Frike. And what happened?"

"Why, master, he paced around a time or two, and then he turned to me and
said, 'Why has Uncle Azzie been keeping this from me?' "

"A-ha," Azzie said.

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"Never mind, it was a meaningless interjection. What did you say to him?"

"I said, 'For reasons best known to himself, young Prince,' and again made
the low bestial noise in my throat."

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"That was well done, Frike. And what happened after that?"

"After more staring at the painting, and fumbling with his lip, and various
other movements which I leave out for the sake of brevity, he said, 'Frike, I
must have her.' "

"I knew my scheme would work!" Azzie said. "What else did he say?"

"That was all for the first day," Frike said. "By the second, he was getting
impatient. He wanted to know where you were.

Since he is a dutiful lad, he wanted your permission before he set forth
after her."

"Good lad," Azzie said. "Where is he now?"

"Gone," Frike said. "Soon after, he decided he couldn't wait."

"But where did he go?"

"Why, after the Princess Scarlet, of course. Just as you wanted him to. He
waited five days, master, and longer he could not abide due to the fever of
passion her picture had inspired in him. Was that not how you wished it,
master?"

"Of course. But he needed to have instructions first and the special quest
hunting equipment. What did he take?"

"He went into the heavy-equipment closet and selected a sword and armor from
the equipment hanging on the wall. And then he took some money you had left in
the chest of drawers and said he was on his way and to tell you he'd be back
with the Princess and hoped you wouldn't be annoyed with him."

"Damnation!" Azzie cried. He stamped his foot and sank into the earth up to
his waist. He extricated himself with dif-ficulty.

Babriel had wandered out of the house upon Azzie's ar-rival. He had listened
and now said, "What's the matter? He's doing what you want him to, isn't he?"

"Yes, but he shouldn't have left yet," Azzie said. "I've set up this quest to
be difficult and dangerous. It's the only kind that will get the attention of
the High Powers. He is going up against dangerous matters of magic, which
common men had best leave alone. And he has none of the magic protection I
have been collecting for him."

"What, then?" Babriel asked.

"I must get the things that he needs to him," Azzie said. "And I need to do
this quickly, quickly! Did he tell you where he planned to begin his search?"

"Not a word of it, sire."

"Well then, which way did he go?"

"He went straight ahead that way," Frike said, pointing. Azzie looked in the
direction indicated. "North," he muttered. "He went north. A bad omen. Frike,
we must find him before it's too late."

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Chapter 1

Prince Charming rode alone into the great green forest, beyond the familiar
fields and hills, into the terra in-cognita that lay beyond. His way took him
into the north, and as he rode he thought about swords. He knew that a Fairly
Lucky Sword was not as good as a Truly Enchanted Sword, but it was a lot
better than an ordinary sword. He held up the Fairly Lucky Sword and looked at
it. It was an exceed-ingly handsome weapon, with its nicely curling pommel and
the tassels around the grip. This was one of the loveliest swords he'd ever
seen. It was considerably smaller than the big broads-words that were in vogue
in those days, and it was a straight sword, without a curve, none of your
Turkish curlicues, thank you very much. It was double edged, sharpened on both
sides, and it had a needle point. This would be enough in itself to establish
it as one of a special class of sword, since most ordinary swords were only
edged on one side and were hardly ever pointed.

The Fairly Lucky Sword was a nice weapon, but it had its problems. There is a
general class of Enchanted Swords, and Azzie, in haste to find a magical
weapon for his protege, didn't look at the bin he took it out of. He might
have thought all Enchanted Swords were the same. He didn't realize that
"enchanted" was a generic term for a certain type of sword; that is to say,
swords with enchantments of one sort or another upon them.

Enchanted Swords differ greatly in efficacy. There are (or used to be)
Unbreakable Swords, and those that never lose their temper. Swords that
unerringly kill their opponents are exceedingly rare, although that is the
quality every sword-builder tries to get into his blade. All-Conquering Swords
can be found from time to time, but these puissant blades generally don't
outlast the life of their owner, who, since he can't be overcome man to man in
swordsmanship, is typically poisoned by a close friend, a wife, or a wife of a
close friend. Even with a perfect sword, humans don't get out of this world
alive.

Prince Charming rode through the tangled forest. It was, of course, an
enchanted forest. Magical trees just stood there, dark and gloomy, a green
world with black shapes flitting across it. This was like the ancient wood of
the Old World, concealing hordes of monsters.

Charming came at length into a clearing, in a bright little meadow surrounded
on all sides by darkness and menace. At the far end Charming could see a
pavilion made of green and orange cloth. A large black horse was tethered to a
tree nearby, tall and fine, a proper battle horse.

Charming walked forward and approached the pavilion. There were arms piled
outside it: heavy, black armor, splendidly made, encrusted here and there with
pearls. Whoever it be-longed to, he must be wealthy and doubtless powerful.

Charming saw that there was a slughorn hanging from a standard outside the
tent. He raised the horn and blew a loud blast. Before the echo had faded,
there was a stirring within the pavilion. Then a man emerged. He was large,
black-haired, and scowling. He dragged beside him a fair maiden in a swoon-ing
mode.

"Now who is this blows my slughorn?" the knight said. He was clad in brightly
striped smallclothes. Seeing Charming, he scowled more deeply.

"La, sir, I am Prince Charming," Charming said. "And I ride forth to rescue

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the Princess Scarlet from her sleeping spell."

"Ha!" said the knight.

"Why do you say 'ha'?" asked Charming.

"Because it behooves me to make a scornful sound on hearing of this slight
and utterly insignificant quest of yours."

"I suppose your quest is more important?"

"Of a surety it is!" the man replied confidently. "For know, young man, that
I am Parsifal, and I quest after no less a thing than the Holy Grail."

"The Grail, huh?" said Charming. "Is it really in these parts?"

"Of course it is. This is the enchanted forest. In it subsist all things, and
the Holy Grail is sure to be found here."

"What about the woman?" Charming asked.

"Beg pardon?"

"That woman you're holding by the hair."

Parsifal looked down. "Oh, her. She signifies nothing."

"But what are you doing with her?"

"Must I spell it out?"

"Of course not! What I mean is - "

"I know what you mean," Parsifal said. "She is here for me to toy with until
the Grail is in sight."

"I see," said Charming. "By the way, do you need that horse?"

"My horse?" said Parsifal.

"Just thought I'd ask. Because if you don't, I could sure use him. He's a lot
bigger and stronger than mine."

"This is the weirdest thing I've heard in a long time," said Parsifal. "This
child knight scarcely dry behind the ears comes riding into my camp and he
wants to know do I need my horse. Why, no, certainly not, fellow. You can have
him if you want him."

"Thanks," Charming said. He dismounted. "That's really uncommon kind of you."

"But first," Parsifal said, "you will have to fight me for him."

"I was afraid there'd be a condition attached."

"Yes, there is. I see you have a Fairly Lucky Sword."

"I do," Charming said, drawing it and holding it out. "Nice, isn't it?"

"Nice," Parsifal agreed, "but of course it's not an En-chanted Sword like
mine." He drew his own and showed it to Charming.

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"I don't suppose," Charming said, "a sword like mine would be much good
against a sword like yours."

"No, in all honesty, I don't think so," Parsifal said. "Fairly Lucky Swords
aren't bad, but you can't expect much of them against a real Enchanted Sword."

"I didn't think so. Look, do we really have to fight?"

"I'm afraid we do," Parsifal said, and attacked.

Prince Charming jumped out of the way and swung his Fairly Lucky Sword. The
two swords clanged together with an uncanny sound. This was succeeded by an
even more uncanny sound when Prince Charming's blade broke.

"I win!" cried Parsifal, swinging up his Enchanted Sword for the death
stroke. "Gawg!"

Charming thought he was finished, so he used his final seconds to think over
his memories, which in his case didn't take very long.

But Charming's time on Earth was not quite up. Since his sword had been
Fairly Lucky, and a very good example of its kind, it happened that when it
broke, a single bright shard of metal had flown upward, penetrating Parsifal's
throat, where the gorget revealed a fraction of an inch of flesh.

This was the cause of the "Gawg!" Parsifal voiced, before he fell to the
earth with a thunderous sound.

"Sorry, but you asked for it," Charming said. He turned and moved away,
figuring that someone else would be along after a while to bury the man.

"Take the handsome sword," a voice recommended.

"Who said that?" Charming asked.

"Me," Parsifal's sword explained. "Take the horse, too."

"Who are you?" Charming asked.

"They call me Excalibur," the sword said.

"What do they say about you?"

"Read my runes," the sword answered.

Charming took up the sword and looked at its gleaming blade. Sure enough,
there were runes engraved there, though he couldn't understand them. He looked
at the sword with respect and said, "Why did you speak to me?"

"I'm not supposed to," the sword admitted. "But I couldn't just let you walk
away and leave me. I'll be out of work, and I love my work. You'll find me
very useful. If anyone gives you trouble, they'll have me to answer to."

As Charming turned toward the horse, "Hold, sir!" cried the maiden, rising
from her semirecumbent position upon the earth. "I beg thee succor me, by thy
knightly oath."

Not recalling any oaths of a knightly sort, Charming never-theless replied,
"What sort of succor did you have in mind?"

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"I am a Valkyrie," she explained, "and this man over-powered me on a
battlefield by feigning death to lure me near. I can only go home to Walhall
now if I summon the Rainbow Bridge and have a suitable trophy to take with me.
Can you help me locate my horn, which he appropriated?"

"That seems easy enough," Charming replied, "especially if it's the slughorn
I blew on my approach. Is that it hanging from the standard by the tent?"

"Indeed it is," she replied, crossing to it, raising it to her lips, and
winding it in an eerie fashion.

Instantly, the end of a rainbow fell from the sky, barely missing Charming.

"Thank you, good sir," she stated, commencing to gather Parsifal's armor.

"Don't you want the dead knight?" Charming asked. "I thought you ladies
collected them."

"I've no use for a knight who can't keep his myths straight," she observed.
"Good armor, on the other hand, is hard to come by." She dinged the
breastplate with a sharpened fingernail, carried the pieces to the rainbow,
blew him a kiss, called, "Be seeing you," and vanished in a flash of light.

Charming rode off on the charger through the forest with the sword Excalibur
strapped to his shoulder, leading his original horse. It was wonderful to feel
the sword there. After a while he heard a low murmur beneath his right ear and
realized that it was Excalibur, muttering to itself.

"What is the matter?" Charming asked.

"Nothing much. A touch of rust."

"Rust!" Charming drew Excalibur and examined the shin-ing blade. "I do not
see it."

"I can feel it coming on me," said the sword. "I need anointing."

"I have no oil."

"A bit of blood or ichor will do very well."

"I have none."

"Then forget about it, laddie, and let me nap and dream of the old days."

That seemed to Charming a very strange thing to say. But he let it pass. He
continued on.

Presently, the sword seemed to sleep, because a low even snoring sound came
from it. Charming had no idea that talking swords could also snore. He tried
to ignore it, and rode along until he passed a man in a friar's cowl.

The friar greeted Charming, and they went their respective ways. But
Excalibur said, "Did ye see the sly-naughty look of him?"

"I didn't notice anything of the sort."

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"He was planning your destruction," the sword said. "Such insolence! And such
malevolence!"

"I didn't think it was like that at all," Charming said.

"Are you calling me a liar?" the sword asked.

"Certainly not!" Charming said, since it is natural to use caution when
talking to a talking sword, especially one with runes.

"I hope we meet that friar again," Excalibur said, and rattled up and down
with low, sinister laughter.

Later that day they passed a group of merchants. They were civil enough, but
no sooner were they out of sight than the sword told Charming that the
merchants were actually thieves who were planning to knock him, Charming, over
the head, and steal him, Excalibur. Charming said he didn't think so, but the
sword would not listen. He finally pulled himself out of Charming's belt,
said, "I'll be right back," and flashed off into the forest. He came back an
hour later, bloodstained and wobbling.

After that, the sword swore and sang like a drunken per-son, and finally
began to accuse Charming of planning some evil against him, such as melting
him down when he came to the next foundry. It was obvious that the sword had a
problem.

That evening, when he lay down for a little rest and the sword had gone to
sleep, Charming got up and ran away from Excalibur as fast as he could.

Chapter 2

Relieved of the sinister company of Excalibur, Charm-ing continued his search
for Scarlet's castle. He moved silently through the forest, huge trees on all
sides, vines and creepers using up whatever space was left. It was an
un-dersea kind of landscape, green and wet, with odd noises coming from all
around him.

Prince Charming walked. Unfortunately, Parsifal's big black horse had run off
with his first horse when he abandoned Excalibur.

Meanwhile Azzie, in Augsburg, was rushing about his mansion frantically,
trying to put together the things he needed to give to Charming once he found
him.

"Quick, Frike, better put in a bottle of magic wound oint-ment."

"The edged-weapons kind, sire, or the clubbed-in-the-head kind?"

"Better pack in both, we can't tell what he's gotten himself into."

"Lady Ylith is back, m'lord," Frike advised him.

"Oh? I thought she was keeping an eye on Scarlet. . . . More bandages."

"That she is, sir. Though in your absence she's felt obliged to maintain the
agreement on your behalf by reporting devel-opments to the observer on a

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regular, daily basis."

"The observer? That being Babriel? Of course. Good girl. Where is she now?"

"In the parlor, I believe, conferring with the observer over tea. . . . Here
are the bandages."

"I'd best stop by and say a quick hello before we leave. Thanks, Frike."

Ylith and Babriel were stealing glances at each other over tall flagons of
wine and exchanging glances through the haze of burnt mist which surrounded
the smoking crumpets. They seemed to have developed a taste for each other's
company. You could tell by the way Ylith arched her back at every
op-portunity. As for Babriel, it seemed that some heavenly ana-logue to desire
was working itself out in him.

Azzie bounded into the room, grinning or grimacing as the case may be,
causing Ylith to spring to her feet.

"Azzie, dear, I'd thought you still far gone," she an-nounced, rushing toward
him, embracing him. "I was just taking advantage of the opportunity."

"Opportunity for what?" Azzie asked.

"Why, to see how things are going on your end of the business," she stated.
"How fares the project?"

"The moment is crucial," Azzie observed, disengaging him-self, "and my
presence is required on the scene. I think you'd better get back to Scarlet's
castle to watch developments on that end. Hi, Bab. How's Good doing these
days?"

"Why, uh. We've just come up with a very interesting and inspiring touch for
our entry. We're calling them stained-glass windows. I'd really like you to
see them sometime."

"Sorry, I'm in a hurry right now. Stained glass?"

"Yes. Beautiful and morally instructive."

"Ugh! Sounds terrible. Sorry I can't stay and chat. Have another drink. It's
good for you. Frike! Have we got everything we need?"

"Here, master, is the final thing!" cried Frike, stump-ing into the room. He
was holding in his hand two long horseman's boots made of limp red leather.
There was nothing unusual about them except for the small dials set into the
heels.

"My Seven League Boots!" Azzie cried. "Frike, you're a genius!"

Azzie put them on, hefted the sack containing spells, extra swords, and other
odds and ends. He tapped the heels of the boots twice, activating them.

"I'm off!" he cried.

Azzie went through the front door in a single stride and took to the air.

Babriel and Ylith rushed to the windows to watch, for they had never seen
Seven League Boots in operation before. Azzie's pair was not new, but they
worked perfectly. Off he went, just clearing the houses of Augsburg but

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gaining altitude, and climb-ing steadily.

The Seven League Boots took him high into the air, and Azzie could see the
great forest below him, stretching to every horizon in a boundless sea of
green. Every once in a while a clearing broke the uniformity and showed a
settlement below. This went on for a long time. Azzie didn't know where he was
and decided to ask directions. He tried to get the boots to take him down. The
boots refused to vary from their previous course. That was the trouble with
Seven League Boots. They were very literal, taking you exactly seven leagues
at a step, not an inch more or less. He reached down and hammered at them.

"I want to go down right here!" But the boots ignored him, or at least didn't
register his complaint. Straight and true they carried him, above the forest
and its several rivers, coming down at last outside a town.

Amazed peasants in the village of Vuden in eastern Wal-lachia watched as a
demon made a perfect landing in the middle of the weekly fair.

"The enchanted forest!" Azzie cried. "Where is it?"

"Which enchanted forest?" the villagers cried back.

"The one with the enchanted castle with the Sleeping Prin-cess in it!"

"Back that way about two leagues!" the villagers cried, pointing the way
Azzie had just come.

Once again Azzie soared into the air. And once again the Seven League Boots
took their full seven-league stride.

Now began a nerve-racking contest in which Azzie tried to estimate what
direction to take in order to reach his desti-nation in exact increments of
seven leagues. It took a while to figure out the appropriate zigs and zags.

There it was ahead, the peak of the magic mountain, rec-ognizable by the haze
of obfuscation which hung over it. But now, where in its vicinity was
Charming?

Chapter 3

Prince Charming walked all day through the forest. The ground was fairly
even, there were numerous sparkling streams, and from time to time he would
pass a fruit tree and pick his lunch. The sun slanted in, gilding the leaves
and branches. After a time, he came to a glade where he rested.

When he awoke, the woods were gloomy with evening light and something was
passing near him. He scrambled to his feet and moved off into the underbrush,
reaching for his sword before recalling he had abandoned Excalibur. Drawing a
knife then, he peered out from behind a blackberry bush. He saw a shaggy
little pony enter the clearing.

"Hello, young man," the pony said, halting, and staring at the bush.

Charming was not surprised that the pony could speak. After all, it was an
enchanted forest.

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"Hello," he said.

"Where are you going?" asked the pony.

"I'm looking for an enchanted castle that is supposed to be somewhere
nearby," Charming said. "I am to rescue a maiden named Princess Scarlet, who
lies there in an enchanted sleep."

"Oh, the Napping Princess thing again," the pony said.

"Well, you're not the first who has been through these parts in search of
her."

"Where are the others?"

"They've all perished," the pony said. "Except for a few who are still
striving onward, and who are destined to perish soon enough."

"Oh. Well, I'm sorry for them, but I guess that's how it should be," Charming
said. "It wouldn't do to have the wrong fellow awaken her."

"So you're the right fellow?" the pony inquired.

"I am."

"What's your name?"

"Charming."

"Prince Charming?"

"Yes."

"Then you're the one, all right. I was sent out here to find you.

"Who sent you?"

"Ah," said the pony, "that would be telling. All will be revealed to you at
some later time. If you live long enough, that is."

"Of course I will," Charming said. "After all, I'm the right one."

"Get up on my back," the pony said. "We can discuss it as we go along."

Chapter 4

Prince Charming rode along on the pony, until at last the woods opened and he
could see a field in which many tents were pitched. Strolling among them were
knights in holiday armor, eating barbecue and flirting with damsels in tall
pointed hats with flimsy veils who went back and forth carrying wine, mead,
and other drinks. There was even a little orchestra playing a sprightly air.

"Looks like a goodly bunch over there," Charming said.

"Don't you believe it," the pony replied.

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"Why shouldn't I?"

"Take my word for it."

Charming knew, in the part of his mind which housed ancient wisdom, that
shaggy little ponies who appeared mys-teriously in the woods could be counted
on to give good advice. On the other hand, he also knew that men were not
supposed to follow this advice, since if one always listened to the voice of
reason, one would never do anything interesting.

"But I'm hungry," Charming responded. "And perhaps those knights know the way
to the enchanted castle."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," the pony said.

Charming kicked the pony in the ribs and it ambled for-ward.

"What ho!" cried Charming as he rode into the midst of the knights.

"What ho to you!" the knights called back.

Charming rode closer. "Art thou a knight?" the foremost of them called out.

"Indeed I am."

"Then where is thy sword?"

"That's quite a story," Charming said.

"Tell it to us, then, will thee?"

"I met this sword named Excalibur," Charming said. "I thought it was a proper
blade, but no sooner had we started traveling together than it opened on me a
mouth such as you would not believe. And it grew passing strange, till finally
I had to escape it lest it kill me."

"That's your story, is it?" a knight asked.

"That's not my story, it's whathappened."

The knight made a gesture. Two knights came out of a white pavilion carrying
a baby-blue satin pillow between them. Lying on this pillow was a sword. It
was dented, covered with rust, and its tassels were frayed, but it was
recognizably Ex-calibur.

"Is this your sword?" the knight asked.

"Yes, though that's not how it looked when last I saw it," said Charming.

Speaking in a thin shaky voice, Excalibur said, "Thanks, fellas, I believe I
can stand on my own."

The sword rose off the pillow, almost fell over, then bal-anced steadily on
its point. The bright jewel in its pommel looked at Charming without winking.

"It's him, all right," Excalibur said. "He's the one who abandoned me on the
field of battle."

The knights turned to Charming. "The sword asserts that you abandoned it on
the field of battle. Is that true?"

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"It wasn't like that," Charming said. "The sword is raving."

The sword swayed, then regained its balance. "My friends," it asked, "do I
look deranged? I tell you, he threw me away for no reason at all and left me
to rust on the hillside."

Charming made a gesture of finger to the temple, denoting that the thing
referred to was crazy.

The knights didn't seem convinced. One said to another, in a clearly audible
voice, "A little weird, perhaps, but definitely not crazy."

One of the knights, a tall gray-bearded man with the eagle-eyed look and thin
lips of a spokesperson, took out a sheet of ruled parchment and a stylus.

"Name?"

"Charming."

"First name?"

"Prince."

"Occupation?"

"Same as first name."

"Present assignment?"

"Mission."

"What type of mission?"

"Mythic."

"Nature of mission?"

"Awaken Napping Princess."

"By what instrumentality?"

"A kiss."

After completing their questions, the knights retired to a quiet part of the
field to consider what to do next, leaving Charming trussed hand and foot with
silken cord and rolled under a hedge.

It seemed to Charming that these were not the ordinary run of knights. Their
line of questioning was unexpected. Their faces, bony pallidities half-hidden
behind moldering iron-and-wood casques, were unprepossessing. Charming
overheard them talking as they moved off:

"What'll we do with him?"

"Eat him," came a reply.

"That goes without saying. But how?"

"Fricasseed is nice."

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"We just had fricasseed knight last week."

"Then let's do the pony first."

"How?"

"What about roasted with fines herbes? Did anyone see any fines herbes around
here?"

Charming immediately decided (a) knights didn't speak as he had supposed they
did, or (b) these fellows were not knights at all but actually demons in
knights' clothing.

A general consensus was reached on the fricasseeing. But they had some
difficulty getting a fire going. It had rained recently in this part of the
forest and there wasn't much dry wood to be found.

Finally, one of the knights caught a baby salamander. Pil-ing moist kindling
against it and rapping its nose sharply when it tried to escape, they soon had
a good blaze going. Two more knights turned to the creation of the sauce, and
another pair made the marinade while the rest sang.

Charming knew he was in deadly peril.

Chapter 5

Azzie was under way again, having given up the Seven League Boots in favor of
his own demonic flying abil-ities. He flew and scanned the woods, noting a
fire in the distance. He went to it, circled overhead, adjusted his vision,
and saw Charming, trussed like a capon, await-ing fricasseeing aux fines
herbes while the pony cooked and screamed.

"You can't do this to me!" it cried. "I haven't finished briefing him."

The demon knights kept on singing.

Quickly Azzie set down in the bushes nearby. He was considering things he
might do to harass the knights and free Charming when, of a sudden, Babriel
appeared beside him, resplendent in white armor, his dazzling white wings
fluttering.

"Come to brag about your cathedral?" Azzie asked him.

Babriel looked at him sternly. "I hope you're not thinking of wading in there
yourself, old man."

"Of course I am," Azzie said. "What do you think, I'm going to let my hero be
eaten by renegade demons?"

"I didn't mean to intrude, but it is my duty to keep an eye on you. I can see
that your Prince is in trouble. But you know the rules as well as I do. You
mustn't help him. Not directly. You must not try to influence matters by your
own actions."

"I've just got a few things for him," Azzie said. "A dagger. An invisible

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cloak."

"Let me see them," Babriel said. "Hmm. Dagger seems all right. Can't tell
much about this cloak, though."

"That's because it's invisible," Azzie said. "But you can feel it, can't
you?"

Babriel felt it all over.

"I guess it feels okay," he finally acknowledged.

"Even if it didn't," Azzie asked, "who'd know the differ-ence?"

"I'd know," Babriel said. "And I'd tell."

Prince Charming lay trussed up and feeling foolish. Why hadn't he paid
attention to what the shaggy pony had tried to tell him? Now it couldn't
continue the questing lecture. Why hadn't he believed? If you won't believe an
oracular shaggy pony, what will you believe? It did smell good, though. . . .

Then he heard a sound. It sounded like someone saying, in a loud whisper,
"Hey there!"

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Your uncle Azzie."

"I'm glad you're here, Uncle! Can you get me out of this?"

"Not directly, no. But I do have a couple of things for you."

"What?"

"The first is an enchanted dagger. It will cut your bonds."

"And the second?"

"A cloak of invisibility. You can use that to get out of the mess you're in."

"Thanks, Uncle! I'd do the same for you!"

"I doubt that," Azzie said. Aiming with care, he dropped the dagger. It went
point first into a log beside which Charming was propped.

"Got it," Charming said.

"Good boy. Now here's the cloak of invisibility. Be sure to read the
instructions. And above all, do not remove them under penalty of law! Good
luck! I'll see you a little later."

Charming heard something soft falling, landing near him with a hushed
whisper. That would be the cloak. After the enchanted dagger had cut his
bonds, he looked for the cloak but couldn't find it. That figured, he
realized. It wouldn't be easy to find an invisible cloak, especially on a dark
night.

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Chapter 6

The demon knights were returning. They were singing,

Fair is foul and bread is dead

Put pease pudding in his head

And stuff his gut with fine persimmons

Till he looks like Jack Fitzsimmons.

No one had ever explained the meaning of this verse. It was very old, from a
time when men found obscurity a com-forting way of life.

The demon knights sprawled about the campground then, grunting, stretching,
chuttering, yawning. With an occasional belch and considerable scratching,
they settled themselves quickly.

Charming turned to the cloak. It wasn't there again. Then he caught sight of
the tag, a small square of cloth with phos-phorescent writing on it. It said,
DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG UNDER PENALTY OF DIVINE PUNISHMENT. PLEASE READ
IN-STRUCTIONS ON OTHER SIDE. Charming tried to read the in-structions on the
other side but they were not illuminated.

He arranged the cloak around himself as well as he could and started walking
softly among the sprawled ranks of war-riors.

A slight inconsistency in the height of the ground caused him to stumble and
brush against one of the figures.

" 'Ere there!" An unsteady hand reached out and seized him. "Boys, ye ken
what I've found?"

"Why you got your fist half-clenched like 'at, Angus?" the others cried.

"Because within it, my friends, I've got holt of an invisible spy."

"I'm not a spy!" Charming cried.

"But youare invisible, won't try to deny that, will you?"

Charming broke free and ran. The knights got up and chased after, awakening
others with their loud hoots.

From behind him came their cries. These were answered by shouts from ahead.
At first Charming thought it was an echo. But then the fact that the cries
from before him were becoming louder tipped him off to the real situation.
There were demon knights ahead as well as behind. They must have moved quickly
to cut him off. He saw that he was going to have to pass through their ranks.

Pausing to re-drape the cloak of invisibility, he was fas-cinated to see his
hand disappear as soon as the cloth was passed over it. Charming could look

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through the cloak and through his hand that it covered and see the ground
beneath it.

Of course, the part of his hand that was not covered remained as visible as
always. More visible, in fact, since the existence of an arm in which the hand
terminated blood-lessly and at a slant did nothing to make it more
imper-ceptible.

Quickly, he draped himself as best he was able and set off running again. He
plunged into a broad grassy field. Horsemen appeared by moonlight on the edge
of the meadow. Then one of them pointed and waved, saying, "There, where the
grass is parted, that's where he must have gone!" Immediately a squad-ron went
out in pursuit.

Charming dodged back into the woods, and there, finding a shallow cave,
concealed himself long enough to tear out the cloak's lining. As he had hoped,
this material, thin though it was, had the same qualities as the cloak itself.
And so Charming could devise a mask for himself, a full-length wraparound
mask, and thus even his head was concealed.

He could do nothing about the movements of his passage, however. Every
footfall was marked by a bruising of leaves and bending of small boughs and
grasses. At least hiding his head was rendering the finding of him more
difficult.

He hurried, even knowing that he was kicking up a con-siderable trail. It
occurred to him that he might do better if he could get himself to move slowly
and carefully, thus eluding his pursuers while he was among them. That was how
a fairy-tale prince might act, he thought, but that was not the way he was at
all. He was running, his long legs exulting in stretching and striding,
hurrying away from danger. Viewing himself from the viewpoint of his legs, he
was a soaring creature proceeding by leaps and bounds. But the fact was the
horses of his pursuers were moving faster. They were coming up on either side
of him, the riders only slightly impeded by the necessity of having to sight
his movement through the bending branches that marked his passage.

They closed in, their steel lance points winking at him. He could see a
clearing ahead, but doubted that he could make it. It was all the more
tantalizing because it contained a long lime-stone shelf. The stone would
neither retain his footprints nor reveal his passage. It was going to be
close.

One of the knights took aim with his lance and came charging.

It was only at this moment of extremity that his salvation came. He did not
know whether it was natural, or induced somehow by Azzie. Where before the air
had been still, now a wind rose up. Not just a little wind, but a full-blown
gale, bearing drops of icy water and a scattering of hail.

On all sides, the foliage blew into wild disarray, making his movements
undetectable.

The leading knight missed him by five feet. The second wasn't even close. The
knights spread apart, trying to contain him within their circle. But Charming
easily slipped between them and hurried down to the limestone shelf. This he
was able to traverse without leaving a trace. When he stopped, the wind had
died again, and there were no sounds of pursuit. He realized he had eluded the
demons.

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Chapter 7

Prince Charming ran until his legs grew numb and his lungs fiery. At some
point, he collapsed and slept.

When he awoke, he saw himself to be in a sunlit meadow. At the far end of it
a mountain rose into the sky, a gigantic Matterhorn of the Imagination, a
dream mountain of multicolored glass. In front of the mountain, and block-ing
further access to it, was a dense forest of what looked like metal trees.
Charming advanced upon the strange forest and regarded it. The trees were made
of thorned stovepipe, and the tallest of them was not over seven feet in
height. As he approached, the trees began to emit a yellowish gas which
quickly caught fire, sparked by igniters located below-ground.

Prince Charming might not have known what these were, save that he recalled
seeing Azzie studying a slip of paper which he later left lying upon his
desktop. Curious, Charming had looked at it. It proved a receipt from the All
Spiritual Regions Gas Company for payment for gas to power flame trees.

If Uncle Azzie "was indeed paying the bill to fuel the trees - and Charming
could draw no other inference from the evi-dence- then the signs of
manipulation were unmistakable. He felt strange now when he considered the
ramifications. It made him feel as if he were painted cardboard, a cutout
figure pinned to the background. This was frightening, but it came at a time
when there was an urgent need to get on through the place. So he saved it for
later consideration and moved ahead.

If the things could be turned on, they could be turned off. He sought for the
better part of an hour before he located the valve in a ditch. The trees went
out when he turned it. How very strange, to set up a thing like this in the
first place.

He passed among them.

And so he came to Glass Mountain Village, final base camp and source of
provender, sustenance, and souvenirs for those who would climb to the
sun-dazzled summit of the great moun-tain, where, it was said, stood the
enchanted castle within which lay the sleeping Princess Scarlet.

The principal industry of the town was to serve those who sought to climb the
Glass Mountain. Here came explorers and glass-mountain climbers from all over.
The lure of the thing was irresistible.

Charming walked down a line of shops on Main Street in Glass Mountain
Village. Many of the shops specialized in glass-mountain-climbing equipment.
Glass is a tough substance to scale. To hear the townspeople talk you'd think
the glass changed qualities every time a cloud came over the sun. The mountain
boasted every kind of glass to be found: Swift Glass and Devious Glass, Tricky
Glass and Swamp Glass. There was High Mountain Deadly Glass and Low Plain Bed
Glass. Each kind of glass (and Glass Mountain was said to be composed of all
of these kinds and more) had its own difficulties, and booklets were available
at the shops dealing with the remedies for every variety.

Although some believed that this Glass Mountain was the only place of its
kind in the world, unique and unduplicatable, there were intellectuals who
insisted that the perennial human custom of climbing glass mountains could
only be accounted for by deep historical memories, practically universal to

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the race of man, of doing so countless times and places in the past. These
theorists would have it that Glass Mountain was an archetype of human
experience whose physical corroboration was always taking place on innumerable
levels, from the first moment of the beginning of the past to the last instant
of the furthest unrolling of the future.

The bookstores of Glass Mountain Village were also filled with technical
books on how glass mountains had been climbed in this year or that. There were
histories, guidebooks, books of interviews with climbers and theorists. There
were several shops in town that sold nothing but crampons of all types and
descriptions, including diamond-studded ones.

The matter of whether or not to use horses to climb Glass Mountain called up
some controversy in the town. In general, it is much more difficult for a
horse to climb a glass mountain than it is for a man. Horses' legs don't go in
the right ways. They are noble beasts, excellent on plains and prairies, agile
in forests and pretty fair even in semidense jungle, but just not good at
climbing glass mountains. So the custom had sprung up of riding up the
mountain on goatback.

To traditionalists, this was unacceptable. Everyone expects Prince Charmings
to scale the Glass Mountain on horseback. Generations of illustrators, some of
them claiming to be au-thorized by high spiritual powers, had shown horses
climbing glass mountains with Prince Charmings on their backs. The fact is, as
learned societies have never tired of pointing out, even if a horse could
manage the mountain, it would leave him damaged in spirit and weak in the
wind. Despite this, no one liked the idea of goats.

Charming was like everyone else. "Are you kidding?" he said, when told about
riding a goat. "No way!"

"In that case," they told him, "you'll have to wear crampons and try to get
up the mountain yourself."

"Me wear crampons?" He had the common superstitious awe of these useful
objects.

"They are what all the climbers wear."

"No thanks. You're not going to get those things on me."

"If you don't wear them, you'll never get to the top. It's all glass, you
know. Slippery."

Charming, like so many young men in those days, had prejudices against both
goats and crampons. Sighing, he chose at last what seemed the lesser evil.

"So all right already, saddle me up a goat!"

* * *

Not even all the goats make it up Glass Mountain. That must be understood by
those who think a goat is all it takes to win a princess. It's just that you
need to use a goat even to get into the running. If at the very end, you want
to substitute a horse for your goat, after the feat is accomplished, and have
your portrait painted that way-well, a horse looks better than a goat, and it
can be arranged.

And so it was that at last Prince Charming found himself racing upward on
goatback until he came to the entranceway to a great castle whose battlements

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rose high into the air. Ahead of him was a staircase. He knew he had arrived
when he saw the cardboard sign on an iron stanchion. It read, YOU HAVE ARRIVED
AT THE ENCHANTED CASTLE. THE SLEEPING PRINCESS IS IN THE FIRST CHAMBER TO THE
RIGHT AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS. CONGRATULATIONS.

With a tremulous feeling in his thumbs, Prince Charming performed the final
climb over the barbican, endured the icy swim across the moat, and then,
dripping wet, went down the gallery and through the turret passageways, and
finally through the outer rooms where ensorcelled servitors snoozed, to the
staircase with upward curves of great cruelly, to the flagstones of the outer
chamber.

He opened the door and took two steps inside. In the middle of the room he
saw the bed, a high four-poster. Lying on it, eyes closed, was the most
beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was the one whose miniature he had
fallen in love with. But in person she was incomparably more lovely than her
painted representation.

Chapter 8

Any eyes would have sufficed to see her beauty. But Prince Charming's
dragon's eyes saw something more. They saw through Azzie's scheme and
under-stood the snare that the demon had planned. The dragon's eyes saw that
he, Charming, wore the hated face of Scarlet's seducer. What would she do when
she saw that face? The dragon's eyes could see the shadow of disaster here.
But Charming ignored the warning, bending low over the Princess.

This was the moment Azzie had been working toward since he had thought up the
plan in the first place.

The kiss! The fatal kiss!

Azzie had already positioned the poisoned dagger on the little bedstand,
close to Scarlet's hand. This was what Scarlet would use when she opened her
eyes and recognized who had kissed her-the despised seducer!

Azzie, from behind the curtain where he had stationed himself, addressed the
great unseen audience watching the drama unfold.

"Ladies and gentlemen, beings of Light and Darkness, fellow demons, rival
angels! I bring you now the conclusion of the most ancient and edifying drama
of Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet. Behold, the awakening kiss and its
outcome!"

Even while his words died away, Prince Charming, with his dragon's eyes,
continued to regard Azzie's scheme, and he spoke of it, thus:

"A-ha," he soliloquized, "it's obvious to me I am a nothing, a mere congeries
of disparate parts, and that my so-called uncle Azzie, a demon indeed despite
his ingratiating ways, gave me the face of Scarlet's seducer when putting me
together, for the purpose of being sacrificed by Scarlet when I awaken her.
Well then, if that's so, let it be. Kill me, pretty Princess, if that's what
will content you. But though I am a nothing man, constructed of odds and ends
and brought to life by a fiend, yet a true heart beats in my breast, and I can
only say, I am yours, Princess, do with me what you will."

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Scarlet felt the touch of a man's lips. Her eyes opened, but at first she saw
nothing due to the nearness of the young man kissing her. Her first thought
was, What bliss to be so awak-ened!

Then she saw his face. That face! O Gods! She recognized it instantly. This
was the face of the man who had seduced her and abandoned her.

Her eyes widened. One white hand fluttered to her breast like one of the lost
doves of Hera. He! It is he! Her hand groped behind her and encountered the
haft of the dagger lying on the little nightstand. She lifted it. ...

Azzie had calculated this part with precision. He knew how the dagger would
slide into her hand as if of its own volition. The audience, invisible but
present, would lean for-ward. The members of the Awards Committee would see
Scar-let's hand pull back, then plunge the dagger into his back, through to
the heart! And then, with Charming expiring on the floor of her chamber, Azzie
himself would step forward. "Alas, little princess," he would say (the speech
long rehearsed), "you've killed the only man you could ever love, the man in
whom was bound your salvation!" And after that, Azzie thought it would make a
pretty ending if Scarlet turned the dagger on herself, thus ensuring herself
an eternity of pain in the Pits of deepest Hell. He had even considered
bringing Charming back to life long enough to watch Scarlet die, in order to
tempt him into uttering blasphemies so great as to ensure his own eternal
damnation. A good ending for one who likes to tie up loose ends.

So sure of all this was Azzie that he appeared before Scarlet now, saying,
with heavy irony, "Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love; but the
world is not thy friend nor thy world's law."

People argued for a long while afterward as to why this plan was not
successful. In Azzie's opinion, simple reciprocity should have guided
Scarlet's fingers to the dagger, and the dagger to the unprotected back of the
young Prince. But life, with its healthy habit of indeterminacy, would not
have it so.

Azzie had miscalculated the effect of Scarlet's eyes. Though they had not the
ability to see the truth, as had those of Charm-ing, yet the eyes could see
triviality and artifice, and these they perceived as she considered the
tableau she made, she and Prince Charming, and the poisoned dagger. Her
artist's eyes saw the artificiality of it: this was not a good subject for one
who paints from life. She rebelled for artistic reasons from plunging home the
knife, and then, later, her sensibilities fol-lowed her aesthetic judgment.

Scarlet said, "What are you talking about?"

"You shouldn't have killed him," Azzie said. "You've doomed yourself to an
eternity of infernal torments, young lady."

Scarlet burst out laughing.

"Laugh at me? I'll show thee - "

Another voice joined in the laughter. It was Charming, standing beside her,
his arm around her waist. Charming, up-dead! The dagger had not been employed
for its fell purpose! Azzie stepped back in confusion.

They were alive, those two, and somehow love had won out over the ancient
predestination of Azzie's curse. Seeing these beautiful young people together,
the audience of angels and demons was moved; there wasn't a dry eye in the
place.

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"This isn't what I meant!" Azzie cried. "This isn't what I meant at all!"

But this was what he had produced: a merry little tale of love and redemption
which caught everyone's fancy and en-sured that Good, not Evil, would win the
destiny of men's souls for the next thousand years.

Chapter 1

Ylith's slim fingers wenttap tap tap on the door that led into Azzie's
alchemical lab.

"Azzie? I know you're in there."

No answer. Babriel, standing at her side, said, "I guess we'd better try
again." Ylith did so.

"Azzie! Come on! Let me in! It's me and Babriel here. We know you had a
serious disappointment. We're your friends. We want to be near you."

There "was a harsh grating sound. The steel rod that served as the door bolt
was withdrawn. The beamed wooden door of the alchemical lab opened a few
inches. Frike's long-nosed face appeared.

"Is the master here, Frike?" Ylith asked.

"Oh, yes, miss. He's inside. But I wouldn't go near him right now. He's in a
rather foul mood. It's not impossible he would do somebody a mischief at this
time."

"Nonsense!" Babriel said. "Let me speak with him!"

He pushed his way in through the door.

Azzie was seated on a little throne he had set up in one corner of the
laboratory. He lounged there in his purple cloak, with an orange tam o'shanter
pulled over one eye. He looked like hell. His eyes were bloodshot. Tankards
and bottles of ichor were strewn around the floor. There were other bottles on
nearby shelves, jocund in their fullness, within easy reach.

"Come now, Azzie!" Babriel said. "You've put up a very good contest.
Remember, it's not winning or losing that counts, it's how you play the game."

"You've got that entirely wrong," Azzie said. "What counts is winning. How
you play the game counts for nothing."

Babriel shrugged. "Well . . . Different rules, different di-vine imperatives,
I suppose. But you really should stop drinking now, old man. Here, let me help
you up."

He extended an arm to Azzie. Azzie gripped it with one hand and tried to claw
it with the other. Babriel deftly fended him off and helped him to his feet.

"After all, old man," Babriel said, "what does it matter who wins, really?"

Azzie stared at him. "Am I hearing you correctly?"

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"Well, yes, of course. I mean, as Creatures of Light and Darkness we must
take the long view. We all serve life and death, intelligence, and all the
other supernal forces."

"I shouldn't have lost," Azzie said. "It's because I got no cooperation from
the Powers of Darkness. You yourself, Ba-briel, my opponent, were more help
than people on my own side. That's the trouble with evil. It's not
cooperative, not even with itself."

"Don't take it so hard," Babriel said. "Come with us, Azzie. We'll all go to
the Awards Dinner and have a few laughs."

"Oh, yeah, sure," Azzie said. "The damned Awards Din-ner. All right. I'll be
there in a bit. You go on ahead, though. I've got a few little things I have
to do first. How's the Gothic whatchamacallit coming?"

"They're just finishing the bell tower," Babriel replied.

As they departed Babriel said to Ylith, "You know, we really ought to do
something nice for Charming, for the won-derful way he managed his part."

"What a fine idea," she replied.

Azzie gnashed his teeth.

When they were gone, he summoned Frike.

"Did you ever hear anything like that?" he asked him.

"Like what, master?"

"Like those two sappy-faced so-called friends of mine. Did you hear them
talking on the way out? Such nonsense! Can you imagine? They want to reward
Charming for a job well done."

"Yes, master," Frike said. "Very funny, ha-ha."

"I thought so, too," Azzie said. "Well, I think we will give Master Charming
a little acknowledgment of the part he's played in screwing up my drama by
taking from him the life that was my gift to him. I can't kill him myself,
though. Not directly. There are rules. Stupid rules, but rules all the same,
that prohibit a demon from savaging and killing a human being for no reason at
all."

"Oh, that's too bad, master," Frike said.

"Yes, I've always thought that, too," Azzie said. "But I believe we can get
around it."

"Oh, master, how will we do that?"

"Frike," Azzie said, "how would you like to be an avenging warrior for a
change instead of a cringing servitor?"

"Sounds nice," Frike said. "How do we do that, master?"

"We've got plenty of body parts left over," Azzie said, "and I'm a master at
the art of human sculpture. Come with me. Lie down on yonder marble slab."

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"Master, I'm not sure this is such a wonderful idea."

"Shut up," Azzie said. "Don't argue with me. Remember, I can replace your
personality as easily as I can change your body."

"Yes, master, of course." Frike lay down on the table. Azzie found a scalpel
and sharpened it on his heel.

"Will it hurt?" Frike asked.

"Of course it will hurt," Azzie told him. "Anesthesia hasn't been invented
yet."

"What did you say hasn't been invented yet, master? Ana-something?"

"Never mind. Bite down hard on your lip. I'm going to begin cutting."

Chapter 2

Prince Charming was leaning out of one of the high win-dows of the Enchanted
Castle. He was in a good mood,
lazy and well pleased. Love does that to a man, at least for
a while, and Charming was in the first rush of it.

Still, it was disconcerting to see, as he watched through the window, bits
and pieces of the Enchanted Castle disap-pearing.

He looked again, toward the stables. Half of them had disappeared while he
was looking the other way. He reminded himself that they'd have to get out of
here soon. This castle wasn't going to last long, the way the power of its
protective spells was running down.

"Darling! Come down! Our guests want to meet you!"

Scarlet's voice floated up the staircase to the bedroom where Prince Charming
was supposed to be arranging his tunic. He liked to have his clothes look
good. He knew this party was a big occasion for Scarlet, because this was the
time she was bringing over Cinderella and other storybook friends. Charming
wasn't completely sure how he liked having all his friends imaginary beings
from folklore, but it seemed to be working out all right.

He was interested in the way the Enchanted Castle worked. As he stood there,
watching, he could see a piece of the entrance road which led under the castle
wall. Suddenly a section of the wall vanished. A stone gargoyle on one of the
battlements disappeared.

"Charming!" Again, Scarlet's voice. "Where are you?"

A slight petulance to the voice ... It occurred to Charming that he didn't
know his sweetheart very well. He had assumed that the eternal happiness
promised to them in the fable was of the self-creating, self-adjusting kind,
not meaning he had to do adjustments himself. All right. . . .

With a final glance at his appearance in a tall mirror, he departed and went
down the stairs. Below him, in the great ballroom, an orchestra in black tie
and white perukes was saw-ing away at something polyphonic. The guests stood

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about, under the great crystal chandeliers, sipping champagne and nibbling
canapes.

There was Scarlet, arm in arm with Cinderella, who had become her greatest
friend. It had been Cinderella's idea to have a waking-up party for Scarlet.
It would also serve as an engagement parry for Scarlet and Prince Charming.

Prince Charming recognized two famous Irishmen among the guests. They were
Cuchulain and Finn McCool. Looking around, he saw other heroes from France,
Germany, from the Orient - Roland, Siegfried, Aladdin.

They saw him, and a round of applause went up. There were exclamations of
"Well done, old man!"-the words one wants most to hear after having awakened
the Napping Prin-cess. They sang a rousing chorus of "For He's a Jolly Good
Hero."

Yes, moments didn't get much better than this, Charming decided. Even if bits
of your enchanted palace are breaking away, even if Princess Scarlet has a bit
more of a whine than you might have wished, his moment of triumph was sweet.

So he felt all the more trepidation when there came a loud pounding on the
gate. It reverberated through the castle, and every guest stood still and
gazed at the doorway.

Prince Charming said to himself, Rats! Good events don't usually introduce
themselves so emphatically.

"Who is it?" he called.

"One who would crave a favor," came a muffled voice from outside.

Charming was about to say no, but then he realized that on this day of his
triumph he had to face up to what came along. Storybook heroes who are about
to marry the Napping Princess don't refuse to answer the door of the Enchanted
Castle to anyone, no matter how bad the premonitory vibes.

"Well," Charming said, "I really don't have time for a big favor, but maybe a
little favor ..."

He unbarred the door. The man who entered reminded him of someone. But where
could he have met this tall, grim-faced warrior with the brazen helmet pulled
down about his ears?

"Who are you?" Charming asked.

The warrior pushed back his helmet. Charming found him-self looking into the
bearded half-mad face of Frike.

"Frike!" Charming said. "It's you! But there's something different about you
... let me think a moment. . . . I've got it! You used to be rather small and
hunchbacked, and now you are quite tall, well muscled, and with no indication
of a limp."

"You are observant," Frike said, smiling in a bloodthirsty manner.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"As for that," Frike said, "my master, Azzie, sent me."

"I hope he is well."

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"He is fine. He has sent me here to fetch him something which I shall put in
here."

Frike opened a leather satchel he carried. Within it was a sharp odor.

"Vinegar!" said Charming.

"Ye say true," said Frike.

"And why bearest thou a satchel filled with vinegar to this enchanted
castle?"

"The vinegar is for the purpose of preserving that which I would bring away
with me."

Charming did not much like the way the discussion was going, but he said,
"And what would you bear back from here in vinegar, Frike?"

"Ah, lad, it's thy head I've come for."

"My head?" cried Prince Charming. "But why should Uncle Azzie want that of
me?"

"He's angry at you, boy, because Princess Scarlet didn't kill you when she
was supposed to. Thus he lost the contest between Darkness and Light which is
played out on the eve of each Millennium. He's decided you're sly and
unreliable and he wants your head."

"But it was not my fault, Frike! And even if it had been, why should Azzie
hold a grudge against me merely for trying to preserve my life?"

"It's illogical, I'll grant that," Frike said. "But what can you do? He's a
demon, and he's bad, very bad. He wants your head and I'm here to take it to
him. I hate to tell you this, for it is your wedding day. But I have no choice
over timing. Say good-bye to your Princess. It is to be hoped you have enjoyed
her favors betides, because there'll be no aftertides when I've taken your
head ensor."

"You're really serious about this, aren't you?" Charming said.

"Better believe it. I'm sorry, kid, but that's how it goes in fairyland.
Ready?"

"Wait!"

"Nay, I wait for nothing!"

"But I have no sword!"

"No sword?" Frike said, lowering his blade. "But you must have a sword! Where
is your sword?"

"I need to get it."

"You're supposed to have a sword on your person at all times."

"Give me a break, it's my wedding day."

"Well, go get your sword, but be quick about it."

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"Frike, you were practically a father to me. How can you do this?"

"Well, I'm playing a pretty traditional role," Frike said. "The crippled
servant who is slightly sympathetic but still has a fatal bias toward evil.
Nothing personal, but we must fight it out with swords."

"Well, rats," Charming said. "Wait right here. I'll be back with my sword."

"I'll be waiting," Frike said, and went over to sample the buffet.

When Prince Charming had been gone almost half an hour, Scarlet went to look
for him. She found him in what remained of the stables. He had just finished
saddling up the swiftest goat he could find.

Scarlet said, "What do you think you're doing?"

"I don't know how to tell you this," Charming said, "but I think I've got to
get out of here."

"Coward!" Scarlet said.

"Bitch," Charming said.

"But our new life together has hardly begun!"

"What matter a new life if I'm too dead to enjoy it?"

"Maybe you could defeat him!"

"I don't think so," Charming said. "Frankly, though, I'm not happy about
running out like this. I sure need the advice of some wise spirit."

There was a flash of light. A voice said, "I thought you'd never ask." It was
Hermes Trismegistus.

Chapter 3

Never had the demigod looked handsomer. His dark cloak, draped artfully over
his massive white marble body, looked miraculously beautiful. Every strand of
his hyacinthine hair was in place. A faint Oriental tilt to his eyes gave him
a look of unutterable beauty and wisdom. The blankness of his eyes, which, in
the classic statuary mode, were without pupils, made him seem preternaturally
wise. Even his sandals gave off an air of sapience.

"O Hermes," Charming said, "what Azzie is doing isn't fair, sending out Frike
to take my head, and all because I haven't fallen in with his scheme of having
Princess Scarlet murder me."

"It does seem unfair," Hermes said. "But who ever said demons were
otherwise?"

"Has he even the right by divine law to send his servant to take my head?"

"Let me see," Hermes said. He removed from a fold of his cloak a thick
scroll. He threw it into the air and it unwound, soaring upward with paper

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spilling down.

Hermes snapped his fingers and a small spotted owl ap-peared.

"Find me the relevant passage for laws regulating the ac-tions of demons'
assistants," Hermes said.

"You got it," said the owl, and fluttered up into the air, darting close to
the endlessly long page of the scroll. Finally it darted in on a section,
pinched the parchment in its beak, and brought it back to Hermes.

Hermes read the entry and shook his head sorrowfully. "As I feared. He can do
anything he wants with you via a servant, since he created you. Assembled,
actually, but it comes to much the same thing."

"But why should that give him power of life and death over me?"

"That's how it goes in the creation game. But you are not without recourse."

"What can I do?"

"Kill Frike."

"You think I might be able to? He looks awfully strong to me."

"Yes, but you're a hero. Maybe if you had a good sword ..."

"I had Excalibur but we parted ways. It was trying to kill me."

"You must get it back. It will take a magic sword to kill a supernaturally
augmented demon's assistant."

"I think I ought to mention, I'm very scared," Charming said.

"That's because you were given a coward's heart. Don't worry about it,
though. Everyone's scared."

"Everyone?"

"Those who are too courageous perish too quickly to leave a record. Cowardice
is nothing to be ashamed of, Prince Charm-ing. It is like measles - most
people get it at least once in their lives. Just ignore it and it'll go away.
Carry on without it. The metaphor is unclear, but your path of duty is not.
Get out of here, Charming, and find the sword. Tell your coward's heart to
stop fluttering and get on with destroying this knave of a Frike and claiming
your Princess for forever after. She's very pretty, by the way."

"Yes," Charming said, "isn't she? But I'm afraid she's sulky."

"The good ones always are," Hermes said. "Come on, let's go get that sword!"

Chapter 4

There wasn't much time for Charming and Hermes to find Excalibur. Hermes took
them first to the Bureau of Lost Swords. They had the sympathetic vibration
print of every sword ever forged, all kept in a central registration point on

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the planet Oaqsis IV. Hermes found a trace of Ex-calibur and followed it back
to Earth, carrying Prince Charming along with him.

On Earth again, Prince Charming soon found himself in a tavern. Guided by
Hermes, he went to the kitchen. There he beheld a sword, all nicked and
dented, but unmistakably of fine temper, being used by a scullion to
decapitate radishes and turnips, eviscerate cabbages, decorify carrots, and
all the rest of the homely life of domestic steel. Yet despite this, the sword
recognized Charming as soon as he came in.

"Master, here I am!" it said in a breaking voice. "Your own forsaken sword!"

"What has happened to you?" Charming said. "Did you really have to cut
vegetables?"

"It's not my fault," the sword said. "How can I help the base purposes men
put me to? Take me back into your employ, master, and I'll show thee good
service."

"Come on then," Charming said.

The sword leaped to his hand. One of the tavern drudges looked ready to put
up a quarrel, but a single glance, nay, a bare glancelet at the yard of steel
gleaming in Prince Charming's hands put a stop to that. And so it was that
Charming turned, sword in hand, and through the magical attentions of Hermes
was able to return to the Enchanted Castle with Excalibur.

Seeing him, Frike put down the cracker spread with chopped chicken liver at
which he had been nibbling whilst awaiting Prince Charming's return, wiped his
mouth on his sleeve, and said, "Are you ready?"

"Aye, ready!"

"Then here we go!"

The swords clashed. The fight was on.

Chapter 5

Charming's blade, Excalibur, grunted with the weight of Frike's blow, bent
like a willow, and then snapped back. Excalibur beat down hard on Frike's iron
casque, forcing him backward. Frike took two steps to recover balance, then
stomped forward again, his sword swinging in blind-ing patterns of advance and
foil. Excalibur met the other's thrusts and parries with equal ardor and
undaunted skill. The guests, who had gathered on the staircase and on the
small interior balcony above to watch the fight, gasped and held their
breaths.

Then Frike smiled, for he knew the fatal flaw in Excalibur. It was a demented
demon-sword, and upon the signal, it re-sponded to a hellish master. Fitting
that description fully, Frike waited until their swords were crossed once
again. Then he cried, "Come to thy master, O mighty Excalibur! Come to me!"

"Not likely!" snarled Excalibur, slashing off Frike's right arm.

"I command you!" shouted Frike, his high berserk temper feeling no pain as he

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whirled a battle-ax around his head with his good, or rather remaining, hand,
the left, or sinister one.

"But you didn't say it in Runic," Excalibur replied, lopping off Frike's
other arm in response to Prince Charming's valiant swing.

"Spare me this fuscating of quiddities!" Frike shouted, now attacking with
both feet, which were armed with scythes of a wicked temper. "By the arts of
the ancient wicked ones, I bespeak thee, come now to me and at once and
without further palaverations!"

"Why," Excalibur said, "if you so desire, then so be it!" And the great
shining sword sprang from Charming's grasp, described a graceful arabesque in
the air, and came to Frike point first, not stopping until it had pierced the
man's armor and run him through his deepest extent.

"Alack, I am finished," Frike said.

Charming turned to the Princess. His eyes were ablaze. It was in his mind to
end all ambiguity now.

"Give me one final kiss!" Charming said. "And then stab away to your heart's
content, if this desire still be present, for no death is as dear as that
bestowed by the beloved at the moment which should, if things had worked out
otherwise, be that of highest bliss."

"I'll give thee kiss, and kiss for kiss, and then more kisses to repay those
kisses betides!" Scarlet said. "Speak not of death. That was the old way. Now
shall we go on forever in our pleasures!"

And so it was.

Chapter 6

Moondrench was a young spirit who had not had his sexual awakening. Although
he was called "he," he was in fact a neutral in matters of sex-uality. Agrippa
was an older spirit who had been around for a very long time and was more than
a little jaded. He did like fresh young spirits, however, and he may have had
something of a sporting nature in mind when he invited Moondrench. He liked
the naive responses of young spirits. They gave him some-thing to be superior
to.

They arrived at the north entrance to Limbo at the time appointed for the
Millennial Awards Dinner. Together they mounted the cloud-staircases that led
to the building where the banquet was to be held. Clouds are not easy to walk
on, even if you are a demon. In no time at all, Moondrench began com-plaining.

"I'm sick of walking," he said. "Let's fly."

"It's not allowed," Agrippa said.

"But we always fly! Remember that flying game you taught me?"

"Please, let's not speak of that here. It is said that we walk today in honor
of our victim's ancestor, Adam."

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"Adam, shmadam," Moondrench said. "I just don't want to get my new outfit
sweaty."

"Stop complaining, " Agrippa said.

Ahead lay a great cloud-pasture. It seemed to expand like an unbounded
metaphor. It had Corinthian columns which added to its classical look.

They walked to the entrance. A demon in a powdered wig and beige silk
stockings checked Agrippa's invitation, holding it up to the light to make
sure it had the watermark. The Millennial Awards was such an important event
that many spiritual beings tried to lie their way in, or get by with forged
credentials. Luckily for Agrippa, his excellent connections with the High
Demon Council, for whom he threw parties and lit-erary soirees, had assured
him and his friend of places at the banquet.

Agrippa, many centuries old, had the leathery skin and deep wrinkles of a
rottweiler.

The attendant verified his invitation and let them continue inside.

Within the banqueting hall they came to a table so long that it disappeared
from sight at either end. Luckily, Agrippa and Moondrench's seats were near
the middle. They found little name tags in the form of paper pennants stuck
into grapefruits.

Taking their places, they nodded to their neighbors on either side. The
speeches from the high table had already begun. Agrippa found himself sitting
next to a Nubian angel with an ebony halo. Moondrench looked around, still
considerably in awe, and saw food being passed.

"Can I eat now?" he asked Agrippa in a loud whisper.

"Yes, but don't make a pig of yourself."

Moondrench snarled at him and speared a turkeydogleg from a platter as it
went by. He followed it up with a glass of mescal ichor. This had the
embryonic dragon at the bottom of the glass, identifying it as genuine. He
munched and looked around. He stared at the tall blond creature with big blue
eyes who sat across the table from him. "Hot damn," he remarked to Agrippa.
"That's what I call some kind of sexy."

"Forget it," Agrippa said. "That's an angel and he's not for the likes of
you."

It was a fact that demons were always lusting after angels, who, it is said,
were flattered by the attention. This occasion of the Awards Dinner was one of
the few times they were able to mingle freely with each other.

Waiters hurried back and forth with trays of food and drink. Many of them
wore the ethnic masks which were so popular in celestial circles. Their masks
matched the type of food they were serving. Italian angels served tiny pizzas,
Viet-namese angels had eggrolls and Pho soup, and Arab spirits bore silver
trays with kebabs piled high on them.

The food was good, of course, but Moondrench was more interested in strong
drink. "Pass the ichor," he told a tall skinny spirit diagonally across the
table from him. Agrippa was getting a good start, too. Moondrench considered
joining a group of devils off by themselves in a corner, where they drank
ichor out of each other's shoes and giggled immoderately. At a dif-ferent part

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of the table, a fat demon in a clown's outfit cut into a large pie, releasing
four-and-twenty blackbirds, which flut-tered around the heads of the guests.

"Having a good time?" Agrippa asked Moondrench.

"It isn't bad," Moondrench said. "But who is that over there waving his
hands?"

"That's Asmodeus," Agrippa said. "He's in charge of this section of the
banquet."

"And the dark lady beside him?"

"That is Hecate, Queen of Night. If they look in your direction, just smile
and raise your glass. They are very im-portant."

"You don't have to tell me how to behave. What is As-modeus doing? He seems
to be reading something. But I didn't know that Lord Demons could read."

"Very funny," Agrippa said. "If he hears you saying things like that, you'll
see how humorous he'll feel." Agrippa peered more closely. "He seems to be
studying the notes for his speech."

"What speech?" Moondrench asked. "You didn't say any-thing about the
speeches."

"I thought you understood what this is all about."

"Just some sort of big party, isn't it?"

"Rather more than that," Agrippa said. "This is the oc-casion when they
announce the winner of the Millennial contest which determines the quality
that will dominate men's lives for the next thousand years."

Moondrench said, "Is it so important, this matter of human destiny? "

"Not to us, perhaps," Agrippa said. "But to them it means quite a lot."

A Nameless Horror stalked by, reeking of deep reptilian musk. Its companion,
a model of the Pickman variety, asked, "Did you hear what happened to Good's
entry?"

The Nameless Horror grunted in the negative.

"The whole damned thing fell down! Made a beautiful crash -with those
stained-glass windows and all. Too bad about the gargoyles, of course."

"How come?" the Nameless Horror growled.

"Something to do with buttressing and flying-I'm not clear on the mechanics.
Guess Good wasn't either. Har! Har!"

"I want some more to drink," Moondrench said. "You promised me I'd have lots
of fun."

"Here comes the waiter with the ichor," Agrippa said. "Please don't act
silly."

"I shall drink as much as I please," Moondrench said, helping himself to a
flagon of ichor. "And I shall probably drink a lot. Drinking to excess is

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never silly."

There was a disturbance at the rear of the hall. A fox-faced demon had
entered and was making his lurching way forward, colliding with waiters,
bumping against diners, knock-ing dishes from tables as he passed. Murmurs
rose as he went by:

"How rude!"

"Isn't that ...?"

"Is that . . . ?"

"Looks like Azzie."

"Didn't he have an entry in the contest?"

"Wonder what happened."

"Hey, Azzie! You okay?"

"I heard he screwed up a big one."

"I thought he was still in the Pits."

"Looks soused to the ear tufts."

"Watch it there, fella!"

"What else can you expect from a drunken demon?"

"What'd he want with a glass mountain, anyhow?"

"Give 'em hell, Azzie!"

"Yeah! Hell! Brimstone and all that!"

Moondrench was being difficult. Agrippa no longer con-sidered him as
attractive as he had before. And now the banquet was in full swing. More food
kept arriving, brought in on silver platters by demons in black tuxedos. There
were some unusual dishes. Suckling chimaera, for example. And there were all
sorts of dishes with little handwritten signs on them telling the diner what
he was getting into. A few of the dishes were even able to enunciate. "Hello,"
the stewed turnips said, "we're delicious."

The sound of all those beings conversing was beginning to grow deafening. In
order to reach anyone more than two or three seats away, you had to use the
seashell telephones located beside each setting.

On a sort of boardwalk which extended over the dining table, a tableau of
great hits of the past was being presented, highlights of the macabre and the
virtuous. As new guests ar-rived, each had to have his lineage and
accomplishments an-nounced by the white-furred majordomo.

Azzie continued to push his way forward, on the crest of an advancing wave of
chaos.

Then Asmodeus got up. He was fat, and his white skin had a greenish cast. His
lower lip protruded so far that a saucer could have balanced on it. He wore a
bottle-green coat, and when he turned around, his twisted pig's tail was

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visible.

"Hello, friends," Asmodeus said. "I think we all know why we are here, don't
we?"

"To get drunk!" an ugly spirit off to one side said.

"Well, yes, that, of course," Asmodeus said. "But we are getting drunk
tonight for a purpose. And that purpose is to celebrate the eve of the
Millennium, and to announce the winner of the contest. I know you're impatient
to find out who it is, but you'll just have to wait a little longer. First we
are going to have some special appearances."

Azzie moved to the front of the hall.

Asmodeus began to call out names, and various spirits got up to take bows.
They grinned and smirked, scraped and bowed to the enthusiastic audience. The
Red Death was introduced and stood up. He was tall, and wrapped from head to
foot in a bloodred cloak. Over his shoulder he carried a scythe.

"Who's that couple over there?" Moondrench asked. "The big blond angel and
the dark little witch?"

"The angel is named Babriel," Agrippa told him. "The witch is Ylith - a good
friend of Azzie's, one of our more in-teresting and active demons. I believe
he just went by."

"I've heard of him," Moondrench said. "He was doing something special for
this year's festivities, wasn't he?"

"So it's been said. There he is now, down front. Looks like he got a head
start on the rest of us. I wonder what he's up to?"

Azzie climbed onto a table, to the consternation of the diners who surrounded
it. He swayed. He breathed smoke and struck sparks as he moved.

He made as if to say something several times but failed. Finally, he plucked
a flagon from a diner's talons, raised it, and drained it.

"Fools! Pigs! Bastards!" he roared then. "Ye less-than-sentient things! I
address myself particularly to my so-called brothers of Darkness, whose
champion I have been, betrayed utterly by your indifference. We could have won
it, boys and girls! We had the chance! My conception was glorious,
un-precedented, and it could have worked!"

He paused and coughed. Someone passed him another flagon, and he sipped from
it. The hall had grown quiet now.

"But did I get any cooperation?" he went on. "Not a bit! The fools in Supply
acted as if I were doing this for my own personal aggrandizement, rather than
the greater glory of us all. Why, damn it! I got more help from that fool
Babriel, the stupid-faced observer from the Powers of Light, than I got from
any of you. And you call yourselves evil! You are living proof, all of you, of
the banality of bad! And now you sit here and celebrate and await the
announcement. I tell you, friends, Evil has grown boring and stupid in this
day and age. We of Dark-ness have lost the ability to steer the destinies of
humanity."

Azzie glared around him. Everyone was silent, waiting for

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him to continue. Azzie strode across the table, took another swig, swayed
again, regained his balance.

"So I say, the hell with all of you! I am going away now to a private place,
to think and to rest. This entire event has been very trying. But I want to
tell you all, this isn't the end of me. Not at all. I still have a few tricks,
my masters! Wait now and see what I bring next for your amusement!"

Azzie threw out a double travel-spell and disappeared in a clap of thunder.
The assembled demons and angels glanced at each other uneasily. "What do you
think he meant by that?" several were heard to mutter.

They did not have to wait long to see.

Before they could move, a tornado came sweeping in from outer reality. It
roared, ripped, and tore at the banquet hall, and it was accompanied by a
rising rush of water. The carefully noted speeches of the elder demons and
angels were ripped from their hands and sent flying to the skies. There
followed an infestation of frogs, thousands, millions of them, dropping from
out the heavens. The walls began to sweat blood, while noxious halations
suddenly became the order of the day. And through it all there was a faint
demonic laughter-Azzie's laugh-ter- as he sent peril after menace after
direness after terror into the banquet hall.

All in all, it proved a most memorable dessert.

Chapter 7

Brigitte was playing with her dollhouse when she heard something behind her.
She turned slowly, a question already forming on her lips, a question which
was lost due to the moue of surprise she gave when she saw who was standing
there, tall, red-furred, with a mean smile on his face.

"Why, hello, Azzie! How are you?"

"I am very well, Brigitte," Azzie said. "And you look well. And I can hear
the sound of a pen scratching in an upstairs room, so I suppose Thomas
Scrivener is living up to his name and recording something about the events
that have befallen him recently."

"Indeed he is," Brigitte said. "But he tells me he doesn't know the ending."

"It may surprise him," Azzie said. "Indeed, methinks it may surprise all of
us. Heh, heh, heh."

"What a sinister chuckle you have,Azzie," Brigitte said. "Why have you come?"

"I've brought you a present, child," Azzie said.

"Ooo! Let me see!"

"Here it is." Azzie brought out a box made of difficult-to-acquire cardboard
and, opening it, showed within the little guillotine.

"How nice!" Brigitte said. "It looks like the perfect thing for cutting off
the heads of my dollies."

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"And so it is," Azzie said. "But you really shouldn't do that, because you
love your dolls and "would be sad to see them without heads."

"That's true," Brigitte said, and she began to snivel in anticipation of her
bereavement.

"But how can I play with my new guillotine if I do not cut off the heads of
my dolls?" She looked around. "Maybe one of the new puppies - "

"No, Brigitte," Azzie said. "I am evil, but I am not cruel to animals.
There's a special Hell reserved for those who are. You see, my dear, these
toys must be used with care, and played with in due gravity."

"It's no fun if I can't cut off anyone's head," Brigitte said.

So far his plan, which was of that brand of evil termed nasty, was proceeding
perfectly.

"Stop sniveling," Azzie said. "I am going to bring you something special."

"What is it?"

"Something whose head can be cut off!"

"Oh, Uncle Azzie!" She ran to him and embraced him. "When will I get this
something?"

"Soon, my dear, very soon. Be a good girl and play now. Uncle Azzie will
return presently with your new gift."

Chapter 1

Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet set up house-keeping in a modest castle
Cinderella had recommended, in a region of great natural beauty on the Rhine.
Briar roses grew round about it. Charming converted his shield into a planter
for sweet herbs. Good spirits danced around their hearth. Sexy spirits
inhabited their bedroom.

"Charming! Would you come here a moment?" Scarlet called.

He looked up from the garden, where he was working away among the organically
grown vegetables.

"Where are you, love?"

"In the bedroom."

"I'm on my way."

High in the room's northwestern corner, as he held her, kissed her, and
caressed her, an eye opened and regarded them. As they fell upon the big
feather bed, watched over by indulgent spirits of the Good who celebrated
their part in the glorious Millennium, the eye regarded them for a moment. As
he unlaced her blouse and drew it up over her head, the eye winked out.

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Chapter 2

Back in his mansion in Augsburg, Azzie turned off his all-seeing eye, one of
the last items he'd picked up from Supply.

Suddenly there was a sound from outside. Looking out of the window, he saw a
Nameless Horror picking its way up the path. It was vaguely man-shaped, it had
one talon in a sling, and it wore an eye patch.

"Hail, Azzie," the Nameless Horror said.

"Hail yourself, Nameless Horror," Azzie said. "You have about five seconds to
tell me why you have invaded my awesome solitude before I boot your Shapeless
Ass out of here."

The apparition's eye sockets glowed. Its mouth curled into an approximation
of a smile.

"Ah, milord Azzie, you talk exactly as I thought you would! I've been so
longing to meet you!"

"What the hell is this all about?" Azzie asked.

"I'm your greatest admirer," the Horror said. "I hope to do great things in
the world. At present I am only an apprentice demon, and am serving my time
doing Nameless Horror work. But I know that will come to an end and I will be
awarded full demon status. Then I hope to be just like you!"

"That's a laugh," Azzie said, laughing sardonically, but flattered in spite
of himself. "Me, the failure, the loser."

"You are not up on recent events," it said, solidifying slightly to improve
its enunciation. "The Powers of Evil have decided to grant you a prize
extraordinary." It held out to Azzie a small box. Azzie opened it and found
within a small statuette of a stylized demon, done in nasty orange, all except
for the eyes, which were colored green.

"What's this piece of rubbish?" Azzie asked.

"It's a special award for Best Evil Deed of the Millennium."

"But what's it for?"

The Nameless Horror took out a scroll from somewhere within its shapeless
clothing. It read, "This is in acknowledg-ment of a masterful performance at
the Millennial Awards Din-ner, when the said Azzie Elbub did disrupt and
confound the proceedings with various Hateful Visitations, thus proving that,
even in defeat for the main prize,viz., direction of man's destiny for a
thousand years, the said Azzie Elbub has shown the ef-frontery and sangfroid
that marks the true "worker in the vine-yards of Evil."

Azzie accepted the award and turned it this "way and that. It was really very
nice. It was not the mam prize, "which the Powers of Good had won by default,
despite the cathedral fiasco, as a continuation of a previous victory. It
would look very nice on his mantel.

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"Well, thank you, young demon," Azzie said. "It's sort of a consolation
prize, I suppose, but welcome nonetheless. You say you admire me, eh?"

"That is correct," the Nameless Horror said, and after that intoned some
lines of praise so fulsome in their ingratiation that another being "would
have been embarrassed. But Azzie, who was not much bothered by self-doubt -
only the insufficiency of others-was well pleased.

"Thank you, Nameless Horror. I accept this prize, and please tell the
committee that I am well pleased by it. Now go you and do evil!"

"That's what I "was hoping you'd say," it replied, and took itself away.

Chapter 3

It was very nice getting the prize, but that was not all. Soon after, there
was a brightening of light around the Augsburg mansion.

"Now who the hell is that?" Azzie remarked. He didn't appreciate all the
interruptions when he was getting ready for a good sulk.

This shape took its time solidifying. Azzie waited, and it finally took on
the form and substance of Babriel.

"Hail, Azzie!" Babriel cried, standing tall and blond and as stupid looking
as before.

"Yeah, hail and all that," Azzie said. "You want to rub it in, I suppose?"

"Not at all. You know I never gloat."

"That's true," Azzie said, "and it makes you all the more annoying."

"You're a great kidder," Babriel replied. "But let me tell you why I'm here."

"If you wish," Azzie said. "It makes no difference to me."

"By the powers vested in me by the Committee for the Powers of Light,"
Babriel said, reading from a scroll he had taken out of the white folds of his
robe, "we hereby present a special Power of Light award to AzzieElbub, demon,
but not utterly damned, for the good services he did for the Powers of

Light in helping us win the destiny of mankind for the next thousand years."

So saying, he removed from his bosom a small effigy of an angel, done in a
sickly yellow white, with glinty blue eyes and cutesy little wings.

"Well," Azzie said, pleased despite himself, "that's very nice of the Powers
of Light. Very nice indeed." He struggled to find something ugly to say, but
for the moment was overcome. He had received awards from both the Powers of
Light and of Darkness. He was pretty sure he was the first ever to win both
awards.

After Babriel had left, Azzie fell to musing. He set his two awards down on a

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table and looked at them. Theywere rather attractive things. He was pleased
despite himself. Rage still boiled, however, when he considered how near he
had come to winning the real one, the big one, the Millennial Award itself.
But there was no use brooding over it.

For now, what he needed was a little rest and-strange how the thought should
occur to him - some home cooking, before shrinking his enemies and delivering
them to Brigitte and her guillotine. His thoughts strayed to Ylith. He hadn't
paid much attention to her recently; he'd been too preoccupied with putting
together his entry. But now it was over.

He mused. He could use a vacation. There was a nice spot he recalled in India
where generations of Assassins had worked, killing their thousands of victims
each year as they attached themselves to the great pilgrimages. The Assassins
had built a special resort on the flat top of a low mountain somewhere north
of the Ganges. He was sure he could find it again. It would be fun to go there
with Ylith. He remembered the amuse-ments that had been available last time:
bowling with human heads, croquet matches with giraffes' necks, table tennis
with eyeballs. Yes, it was time he gave Ylith a break.

Chapter 4

Just then the doorbell rang. It was the postman. He de-livered a huge sack
made of horsehide and standing about three feet high. The bag wriggled, and
piteous moans came from it.

"Who's that?" Azzie asked.

"It's me, master," Frike's muffled voice said from within. "Master, I would
really appreciate it if you'd put me back together again."

"And so I shall," Azzie said. "But first I've got some work to do. Have you
seen Ylith?"

"I can't see anything from in here," Frike said. "Could you please
reconstitute me?"

There came the sound of singing, from upstairs.

"All in good time," Azzie said. "I think I hear her now."

He hurried up the stairs. Yes, she sang a witching melody, old when the
pyramids were mere foundations. "Ylith! Are you there?"

"Down the hall," Ylith called back.

He hurried to the spare bedroom from which her voice had come and entered the
room. She was packing a small suit-case. She looked radiant. Something about
her seemed different, though. Was it her complexion? Yes, it had definitely
changed for the paler. And her eyes, night black and deliciously sinister,
seemed to have become cornflower blue.

"Ylith! What is come over you?" he cried. "Has an infes-tation of good gotten
to you? I know several charms and simples that could cure it. . . ."

"There's nothing wrong with me, Azzie," Ylith said. "What you see are the

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visible effects of happiness."

"But what have you got to be happy about?"

"My dear, I don't know how to tell you this. . . ."

"Then don't," Azzie said. "When anyone starts like that, it's sure to mean
bad news. I've had enough bad news for a while."

"What are those things you're carrying?" Ylith asked.

"Oh. Some awards. One from the Powers of Light, the other from Darkness. I
guess they both thought I should have them."

"Azzie, how wonderful!"

"Yes, it is nice," Azzie said. "But listen, Ylith, I've been thinking. I
haven't treated you very well. But you know how it is when you're serious
about the service of evil. Always some-thing to do. Well, I've ignored you for
too long. I'd like you to come away with me now, to a very fine little hotel I
know in India. India's lovely at this time of year, and we'll sport and
disport ourselves and have a great time. What do you say?"

"Ah,Azzie," she said, her voice soft and breathy, "if only you could know how
much I've longed to hear those words from you!"

"Well, now you've heard them. It's good that you're pack-ing. We can be away
at once."

"Darling, I hate to tell you this, but I love another."

"Ouch!" Azzie said, sitting down, then getting up again. "Well, I suppose
whoever it is could come with us," he offered. "That's in the nature of evil,
isn't it, to share when you don't want to?"

"I'm afraid it cannot be," Ylith said. "Babriel would never stand for it."

"Babriel!"

"Yes, he is the one I love. He has asked me away from here, to a beautiful
little place he knows where there are green pastures and lambs frolic and the
flowers of springtime shine everywhere."

"Sounds sickening," Azzie said. "What are you thinking of, Ylith? It is not
in the nature of evil to have a taste for lambs, except in the form of chops
done with a bit of rosemary and mint jelly."

"Same old Azzie," she said, smiling. "You don't under-stand. I've converted.
I've decided to be good."

"No! Not you, Ylith! You need an exorcism immediately!"

"It's not like that at all," she replied. "I've fallen in love with Babriel.
I will go with him, and I will be a person he can love and respect."

Azzie mastered himself for the moment. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he
asked.

"Absolutely. Look!"

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She turned. Azzie could see the rudimentary wings sprout-ing from her back.
They were whiter than mourning doves, whiter than foam from untrammeled seas.
They were tiny now, but they would grow. She had become a Creature of Light.

"That's disgusting," Azzie said. "You'll regret this, I prom-ise you."

He left the door standing open as he stalked away.

Chapter 5

Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet! And their hap-piness! Azzie was
fascinated in spite of himself. He re-turned to the magic mirror in his
workroom. It was large and had a faintly bluish cast. He staggered up to it, a
bottle of ichor clutched in one hand, and stood before it.

He stared into the mirror and said, "Show them to me."

"Show who?" the mirror said.

"You know damned well who," Azzie said.

"Just one moment while I make the connection," the mir-ror replied.

Azzie waited, fuming. Beside him, in the leather bag, the various parts of
Frike squirmed. Azzie ignored them. Caught up as he was in a demonic
obsession, infused with unholy dynamism, he watched the mirror turn cloudy,
then slowly grow clear.

The images of Prince Charming and Princess Scarlet ap-peared. How pretty they
were! In their silken clothing, they seemed a symbol of all that was good with
the world.

Azzie could hear them, in their soft, well-modulated voices, making small
talk with each other.

"Izzum my woozie baby?" This from Scarlet.

"I am yours forever," Charming said. "I know it is usual in these matters not
to look into the denouement. I know that the sour scansions of a later age
will say that I bullied you, or that you nagged me. But what care we for such
cynical glosses? We are young, we are in love, we are beautiful, and contrary
to popular expectations, we are going to stay this way for a long time and
love each other faithfully and well."

"How nicely you put it!" Scarlet said, settling back into his arms.

"Happy, are you?" Azzie snarled. "We'll see to that. There must be something
I can do."

"Master! There is!" This from the leathern bag.

"What is it?" Azzie asked.

"Ah, master, take a moment to put me back together and I'll be pleased to
tell you!"

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"This had better be good," Azzie muttered. "Better than the quickness of
falling steel."

He opened the bag and spread out Frike's parts. Working swiftly, he joined
them together, getting the arms a little wrong in his drunken haste, but doing
a creditable job, all in all.

"Thank you, master!" Frike said.

"Now, speak!"

"Oh, master, you can still take your revenge on these despicably pretty and
lucky young people. The unlimited credit card, master! You still have it!"

"Oh, good thinking, Frike! I'll soon put paid to their mer-rymaking! "

He removed the card from his waistcoat pocket and tapped it twice on a
convenient nasty surface. There was a very brief hiatus and then the supply
clerk appeared before him.

"Yeah, what do you want? "

"I need a special wish," Azzie said. He smiled meanly, an expression he had
often practiced but had never really used before, saving it for a moment like
this. The hell with the rules.

"What would you like?"

"First, a nice catastrophe. I want to collapse the castle of Prince Charming
and his consort, Princess Scarlet, around their ears. Then I'll need a special
Hell to put them in for a few thousand years, to prove to them that it doesn't
pay to flaunt your happiness in front of a demon."

"What sort of a catastrophe?" the clerk asked, reaching for his pencil and
order form.

"Let's make it an earthquake."

"One earthquake coming up," the supply clerk said.

"And after that I'll show you our collection of special Hells." The clerk
opened the big ledger. Suddenly he looked up. A great bell had begun tolling.
Azzie could hear it, too. In fact, in the village near Azzie's château bells
were tolling, too.

"What is it?" he asked. "It isn't Sunday, is it?"

Frike had rushed to the window. "Nay, master, it is the beginning of the
Millennial celebrations. People are dancing in the street! Oh, master, what
spectacles of untoward joy open before my eyes!"

"To hell with that," Azzie said. To the clerk: "What are you waiting for? I
want an earthquake!"

The clerk smiled meanly and closed his ledger book with a snap. "Sorry, your
order is canceled."

"What are you talking about? I'll have your guts for a necklace unless you do
as I say!"

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"No, you won't," the supply clerk responded. "It is the stroke of high noon.
The Millennial contest is over. The Great Powers of Darkness have canceled
your unlimited credit card."

"No, they can't! Not yet! I must do this final thing!"

He held up his card, waving it frantically. The supply clerk smiled with sour
satisfaction and made a gesture. The card melted in Azzie's hand.

Azzie let out a scream of baffled rage and tangled madness. Frike lurched
away and crouched within an elaborately carved armoire. Azzie stamped his
foot. The floor opened beneath him. He sank through it, down, down, down to a
remote dark cool underground tunnel where he might wander for a while and
regain his composure. Frike rushed to the hole and peered in. He could see
Azzie sinking ever downward, still fuming. And outside, from village to
village all across the land, the bells of the Millennium went on ringing.

About The Author

Roger Zelazny is the author of the Hugo-winningLord of Light and the
bestsellingAmber series, including the classicNine Princes in Amber. He is a
six-time Hugo winner and has won three Nebula Awards.

Robert Sheckley is a novelist and scriptwriter whose short fic-tion has
appeared inPlayboy, Atlantic Monthly, andThe Magazine of Fantasy and Science
Fiction. One of his short stories was adapted to film asThe Tenth Victim.

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